Lydia nodded.
"Yes."
Ruth shook her head.
"Well, that's a clever thing."
"I was only trying not to make mistakes."
"Still clever."
Lydia looked embarrassed.
Ruth studied her.
"Do you know, Elias would have loved this?"
Lydia smiled faintly.
"Would he?"
"He was always making notes in odd places. Once drew a survey diagram on the back of my butter wrapper."
Lydia laughed.
"Did you keep it?"
"No. I used it to wrap butter."
Both women laughed.
Then Ruth's expression softened.
"I wish he'd met you."
Lydia looked down.
"So do I."
The older woman watched her.
After a moment, she asked, "Are you frightened about Everett?"
Lydia's smile disappeared.
"Very."
Ruth set down her sewing.
"Would you like to tell me?"
Lydia hesitated.
Then she began.
She told Ruth about St. Louis.
The boardinghouse where she had lived before marrying Everett.
The little church ceremony.
The fine house that later became a prison of rules.
The pantry key.
The money he withheld.
The arguments.
The nights when he stood outside her door.
She did not describe every painful memory.
Some were still too difficult to speak aloud.
But she told enough.
Ruth listened without interrupting.
When Lydia finished, the older woman reached across the table and took her hand.
"Dear girl."
Lydia lowered her head.
"I'm ashamed I stayed so long."
Ruth shook her head.
"No."
"But I did."
"You lived with a man who spent years making the world feel smaller around you."
Lydia began crying.
Ruth moved her chair closer.
"You don't have to defend every choice you made while trying to survive."
Lydia looked at her.
The older woman's eyes were kind.
Then Ruth said something Lydia carried for the rest of her life.
"You can be grateful you're alive without pretending what happened was acceptable."
Lydia squeezed her hand.
Outside, snow drifted from the roof.
Inside, the apples continued baking.
And another part of Lydia's old loneliness began to loosen.
Gideon reached Calder's Crossing shortly before noon.
The settlement consisted of a general store, a stable, a small hotel, several businesses, a schoolhouse, and a county records office attached to the local courthouse.
Snow lay along the edges of the street.
Wagons moved slowly through the mud and slush.
A few men stood outside the hotel smoking pipes.
Gideon tied Copper near the general store.
Then walked toward a narrow building with a painted sign:
Abigail Mercer — Attorney and Legal Counselor.
Miss Abigail Mercer was forty-one years old.
She had practiced law for more than a decade, first assisting an established attorney in Colorado and later building her own small practice in Wyoming Territory.
She was known for being meticulous, skeptical, and unusually patient with people who arrived carrying incomplete documents.
Gideon had used her services once before, when a timber contractor disputed payment for a trapping supply shipment.
She had recovered the money without needing to threaten anyone.
That impressed him.
Now he entered her office carrying Elias's journal and the letter bearing Everett's seal.
Abigail looked up from her desk.
"Gideon Hayes."
He removed his hat.
"Miss Mercer."
She smiled.
"What brings you down from the mountains?"