That was what she knew how to do.
At eighty-eight, the woman returned to the mountain cabin one last time.
Her daughter took her by wagon.
Slow.
Painful.
Worth it.
The cabin had changed.
New roof.
Different stove.
But the stone fireplace remained.
The chair remained too.
Repaired several times.
Wide.
Strong.
She sat.
Her daughter lit a fire.
Then left her alone for a while.
The old woman looked toward the place beside the hearth where a blanket once lay.
She remembered the enormous young man insisting he would sleep on the floor because marriage gave him no right to her body.
She remembered thinking it was a trick.
Then the ribbon.
The kiss.
Burned biscuits.
The first town confrontation.
The mare.
The daughter.
Fifty-six winters.
She laughed softly.
“You really were terrible at breakfast.”
No answer.
That was all right.
She reached into her bag.
Pulled out the faded blue ribbon and copper coin.
The fabric was fragile now.
Almost gray.
She placed it on the mantle.
Not buried.
Not locked away.
Home.
When her daughter returned, she noticed.
“You’re leaving it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The old woman looked toward the fire.
“Because it did its job.”
Her daughter smiled.
“What job?”
The old woman thought.
“Reminded two frightened people they had been kind once.”
“And after that?”
“After that we had to keep choosing it.”
Her daughter sat beside her.
The old woman rested her head against her shoulder.
“I thought he saved me.”
“For years.”
Her daughter waited.
“Didn’t he?”
“No.”
The old woman smiled.
“He gave me room.”
“I saved myself inside it.”
Her daughter’s eyes filled.
“And you saved him?”
“No.”
“He did that too.”
She looked toward the ribbon.
“We just stopped making it harder for each other.”
That was the closest she ever came to summarizing marriage.
The woman died the following spring.
Not in the cabin.
At the lodging house.
Her daughter beside her.
A granddaughter reading aloud from the same old novel she had once read to a mountain man sharpening tools by a fire.
Her final hours were quiet.
At one point she opened her eyes.
“Too fast.”
Her granddaughter stopped.
“What?”
“You’re reading too fast.”
The room laughed through tears.
The granddaughter began again.
Slower.
The old woman smiled.
Closed her eyes.
She did not wake again.
Her funeral was larger than her husband’s.
She would have complained.
Women came from several states.
Former residents of the lodging house.
Children of women who had once stayed there.
A baker.
A teacher.
A seamstress.