Adelaide continued.
“You keep books.”
“Badly.”
“Still.”
“You teach Samuel cattle.”
“You mend harness.”
“You negotiate feed.”
“You make me coffee that remains criminal.”
A faint smile.
“You are not only your back.”
Gideon’s eyes filled.
He had to learn lesson he once forced on her.
That was marriage too.
People take turns understanding.
At fifty, Adelaide walked less.
Her knees had carried enormous body over decades.
Pain increased.
She used cane.
Then a wheeled chair for longer routes.
She resisted briefly.
Not because ashamed exactly.
Because she remembered every person who once assumed she could not.
Gideon noticed.
“Do you want chair?”
“No.”
“You’re hurting.”
“Yes.”
“Those can both be true.”
Adelaide glared.
“You have become irritatingly perceptive.”
“Marriage.”
“Stop saying that.”
Eventually she accepted.
The first day she used chair in Dry Creek, people stared.
Old Adelaide would have shrunk.
This Adelaide stared back until they looked away.
At mercantile, doorway narrow.
Chair barely fit.
She told owner.
“Fix.”
He laughed nervously.
“Why?”
“Because I spend forty dollars monthly here.”
Door widened.
Money again spoke.
Other wheelchair users benefited later.
Adelaide realized her body had spent life teaching architecture lessons.
She wished world learned sooner.
Their children grew.
Abigail married teacher named Henry Ward.
Gideon disliked him for no reason except fatherhood.
Adelaide enjoyed watching.
“You're judging him.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“He has soft hands.”
“He teaches mathematics.”
“Exactly.”
“What do you want him to do, fight bear?”
“It would help.”
Abigail overheard.
“Father.”
Gideon surrendered.
Henry proved good.
They lived ten miles away.
Samuel became surveyor.
He traveled Colorado.
Never married until thirty-eight.
Then married widowed doctor named Catherine who had son already.
Family expanded sideways.
No one complained.
When Adelaide turned sixty, Gideon took her to Dry Creek station.
Platform rebuilt.
The place looked smaller.
Adelaide wore dark burgundy dress and used cane.
Gideon held arm only because she asked.
They stood.
“This is where you ruined my life.”
He laughed.
“You married me.”
“Under protest.”
“You proposed arrangement.”
“Details.”
Train arrived.
Young woman stepped down carrying trunk.
A man waiting approached.
They embraced.
Adelaide watched.
Gideon looked at her.
“What?”
“I was thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
“If I could speak to man I was that day…”
“What would you say?”
Gideon thought.
“Ask questions before making decisions.”
Adelaide smiled.
“Anything else?”
“Do not insult your future wife.”
“Practical.”
Then he became serious.