He loves me even though.
He loves me somehow.
Not anymore.
He loves me.
Enough.
That winter Elias found Emma in the attic sorting old papers.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning.”
“Dangerous.”
She held up the first letter she had written to him.
He smiled.
“You kept it.”
“You kept it first.”
Emma unfolded his reply.
The same one he had handed her on Mercy Bend’s street.
The paper had yellowed.
“You wrote terrible handwriting.”
“I was nervous.”
“You hadn’t met me.”
“I was still nervous.”
Emma sat on a reinforced trunk Elias had built years earlier.
He joined her.
She looked at the letter.
“That sentence.”
“What?”
“‘Your size is information, not a warning.’”
Elias nodded.
“I almost didn’t believe you.”
“I know.”
“I thought you were writing what a kind man thought he should say.”
“I’m not that kind.”
Emma smiled.
“No.”
They sat in silence.
Then Elias asked:
“Do you ever wish you hadn’t come?”
Emma considered.
“Yes.”
He looked surprised.
“Sometimes.”
She continued.
“I wish I hadn’t had to come through that street.”
“I wish Bell had never touched our letters.”
“I wish Amos had never known my name.”
“I wish Nathaniel had never existed in my life.”
Elias nodded.
Emma rested her head against his shoulder.
“But wishing away the road would wish away some of what I learned on it.”
“What?”
“That shame lies.”
Elias looked at her.
Emma continued.
“It told me the town was laughing because there was something laughable about me.”
“It told me Nathaniel’s cruelty was proof.”
“It told me your kindness had to be pity.”
“It told me wanting you was foolish because women like me should accept whatever affection arrives.”
She smiled.
“Shame talks a great deal.”
Elias kissed her temple.
“And now?”
“I talk louder.”
He laughed.
Years passed.
Levi died at eighty.
Ben married the schoolteacher and somehow produced six children despite spending his early twenties terrified of women.
Ruth grew up.
Studied bookkeeping under Emma.
Then announced she hated bookkeeping.
Emma pretended betrayal.
Ruth became a veterinarian instead.
The first woman in the county people called when a difficult calf would not turn or a horse went lame.
Emma and Elias aged.
His beard became gray.
Her hair became mostly silver.
He still looked at her when she entered rooms.
Sometimes she caught him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Fine.”
“You.”
She always smiled.
At sixty-two, Emma’s mobility became harder.
Her knees had carried nearly six hundred pounds for decades and complained with authority.
Ruth brought a wheeled chair from Topeka.
Emma hated it.
Elias said nothing.
For three days.
Then:
“You know you’re behaving foolishly.”
Emma glared.
“I walked into Mercy Bend.”
“You nearly collapsed doing it.”
“That is not the point.”
“What is?”
“I don’t want people looking at me and thinking…”
She stopped.
Elias waited.
“Thinking what?”
“That I’ve become helpless.”