Her hair had silver appearing near the temples.
She still weighed close to six hundred pounds.
Perhaps more.
Perhaps less.
She had stopped asking the scale for moral information.
Elias looked at her.
Emma stopped.
“What?”
He smiled.
“Nothing.”
“You have a face.”
“You’ve been listening to Abigail.”
He walked toward her.
“Dance?”
Music played near the church.
Emma looked at the crowd.
Then at him.
“Here?”
“Where else?”
Years earlier, the whole street had watched her arrive.
Emma remembered.
The dust.
The laughter.
Amos pointing.
Her hand on the mare’s reins.
The terrible urge to disappear.
Now she looked at the same buildings.
Different signs.
Different faces.
Some old ones.
She no longer needed the street to apologize.
It had become only a street again.
Emma held out her hand.
“One dance.”
Elias pulled her close.
Ruth shouted:
“Papa, don’t step on her!”
Emma laughed.
Elias called back:
“Your mother’s the dangerous one.”
They moved slowly.
Nobody laughed cruelly.
Some people watched.
Emma noticed.
Then forgot.
That was freedom too.
Later that evening, a stagecoach stopped outside Cottonwood House.
A young woman stepped down carrying one trunk.
She was tall.
Thin.
Plainly dressed.
Terrified.
A folded paper shook in her hand.
Abigail noticed first.
“Marriage bureau?”
The woman nodded.
“My intended was supposed to meet me.”
Nobody had arrived.
Emma felt the old street beneath her feet again.
She crossed toward the woman.
“What’s your name?”
“Caroline.”
“Who are you meeting?”
“Mr. Samuel Reed.”
Emma knew Samuel.
A shy farmer twenty miles north.
He would probably faint before insulting anyone.
“The creek bridge washed out this morning.”
Emma said.
“He may be delayed.”
Caroline’s eyes filled.
“What if he saw my photograph and changed his mind?”
Emma looked at her.
The question was different.
The fear was the same.
“What did you tell him about yourself?”
“Everything.”
“Then if he changes his mind, you will survive the truth better than you would survive a lie.”
Caroline looked uncertain.
Emma smiled.
“Come inside.”
“I can’t pay for a room until—”
“You can settle tomorrow.”
Abigail shouted from the porch:
“She means I’ll settle tomorrow.”
Emma waved her off.
Caroline looked toward Elias standing behind Emma.
“Is that your husband?”
“Yes.”
The girl smiled shyly.
“He looks like he loves you.”
Emma turned.
Elias had heard.
His eyebrows lifted.
Emma looked back at Caroline.
“He does.”
No hesitation.
The simple confidence of it nearly made her laugh.
Once, Emma would have needed to qualify.
He loves me despite.