He asked whether she minded dogs.
Whether she could tolerate long winters.
Whether she enjoyed reading aloud.
And whether she understood that mountain life could be lonely.
She answered honestly.
She told him she was large.
She told him she was widowed.
She told him she had little money.
And she told him she was tired of being frightened.
He wrote back:
I cannot promise an easy life. I can promise you will have your own key, enough to eat, and no man in this house will raise a hand against you.
She had read that sentence so often that the paper began to soften along the fold.
Now, in the cabin, she knelt beside her trunk and opened it.
Gideon remained standing several feet away.
"Would you like help?"
"I can manage."
He nodded and stepped back.
Lydia lifted out the sewing box.
Then several folded garments.
Near the bottom lay a thick cloth-bound book filled with patterns.
She placed it on the bed.
The cover was worn blue linen.
Small scraps of fabric protruded between the pages.
Gideon looked puzzled.
"A sewing book?"
"Yes."
She opened it.
Inside were patterns for collars, sleeves, skirts, and bodices.
Measurements filled the margins.
Some were written in ordinary numbers.
Others appeared as groups of tiny dots and lines.
Gideon leaned closer.
"What am I looking at?"
Lydia smiled nervously.
"Before I married Everett, I made patterns for customers. I learned to record measurements in shorthand so I wouldn't confuse them."
She turned a page.
"When Everett asked me to copy freight figures, I became frightened of making mistakes. He would become angry if a number changed."
Her hands trembled.
"So I began keeping my own copies."
Gideon's eyes narrowed.
"Here?"
She nodded.
"I disguised them as sewing measurements."
He stared.
Lydia looked embarrassed.
"It was foolish."
"No."
He pulled a chair closer.
"Show me."
She turned to a page near the middle.
Along the margin, between a sleeve pattern and a drawing of a woman's collar, were tiny groups of marks.
Lydia pointed.
"That means forty-eight crates."
Gideon leaned closer.
"And this?"
"Three hundred and twelve pounds."
He stared.
She turned another page.
"Here are freight charges. Here are wagon numbers. And here are initials for the companies."
Gideon slowly sat down.
The chair creaked beneath his weight.
"Lydia."
She looked up.
He stared at the book.
"Do you know what you've kept?"
She shook her head.
"Just numbers."
Gideon looked toward the map.
Then back at the pattern book.
"Elias was looking for freight accounts before he died."
Lydia felt cold.
"Do you think these are the same ones?"
"I don't know."
He hesitated.
"But I think we ought to find out."
Outside, the wind howled across the clearing.
Inside, Lydia held the book against her chest.
For years, she had believed the careful little marks were merely a way to protect herself from Everett's anger.
Now she wondered whether those marks had made her dangerous to people she had never met.
And whether her supposed dead husband had known that all along.
By late afternoon, the storm began to weaken.