“That was bad.”
“Yes.”
Sadie watched him.
No defense.
Ruth asked:
“Then why she still marry you?”
Lucien looked at Sadie.
“That is question for her.”
Sadie smiled.
“Because after he made a decision for me once, he spent rest of life learning not to.”
Ruth considered.
“Did he ever forget?”
Sadie looked at Lucien.
He raised eyebrow.
She said:
“Yes.”
Lucien sighed.
Sadie continued.
“And I reminded him.”
“Sometimes loudly.”
Children laughed.
Lucien said:
“Very loudly.”
Ruth turned ring.
“Can I have when you die?”
Adults choked.
Sadie laughed hardest.
“Maybe.”
Lucien muttered:
“Children have no manners.”
Sadie looked at him.
“Children have honesty.”
Life was not all warmth.
There were deaths.
Mrs. Palmer died at seventy.
Sadie held hand in boardinghouse room.
Mrs. Palmer whispered:
“I should have told you.”
Sadie knew exactly.
“About Lucien asking.”
“Yes.”
“About Cobb threatening.”
“Yes.”
“I was coward.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Sadie thought.
“You were afraid.”
“Does that make difference?”
“Sometimes.”
Mrs. Palmer cried.
Sadie squeezed hand.
“I was angry for years.”
“I know.”
“I loved you too.”
Mrs. Palmer smiled weakly.
“That’s worse.”
“No.”
“Harder.”
She died next morning.
Sadie purchased boardinghouse not because business opportunity but because Mrs. Palmer’s nieces could not manage.
She kept workers.
Converted back washroom into bakery after new laundry building built.
The first loaf baked there made Sadie cry.
Lucien asked why.
“Onions.”
“There are no onions.”
“Stop asking.”
He did.
Clara Whitcomb became lifelong friend.
She never married.
Not from tragedy.
She simply preferred independence.
She visited every summer.
Brought books.
News.
Whiskey.
At seventy-two she became ill while traveling and came to mountain house.
Sadie cared.
Clara complained constantly.
“I defended people from judges forty years and now woman with broth defeats me.”
“Drink.”
“I object.”
“Overruled.”
Clara smiled.
“You would’ve made terrible lawyer.”
“Why?”
“No patience.”
Clara died at Sadie’s house.
Her papers left to Helena library.
Sadie found first copy of her own deed among them with note:
The first paper she ever truly owned because she finally understood it.
Sadie kept note.
Lucien aged.
Broad shoulders stooped.
Scar faded.
Beard white.
He could no longer climb highest trap lines.
At first, he pretended.
Returned exhausted.
Sadie noticed.
“You’re done with upper ridge.”
“No.”
“Yes.”