“From whom?”
He looked toward the bank across the street.
Clara understood.
She left through the rear door.
Before returning to the ranch, she stopped at the schoolhouse.
The teacher who had taught Blackwood children for thirty-seven years still lived in a small cottage behind it.
She remembered Elias.
“Oh, yes.”
“Was he always deaf?”
The old teacher’s face changed.
“No.”
Clara’s skin prickled.
“He could hear?”
“Perfectly.”
“Are you certain?”
“He sang badly.”
The teacher smiled faintly.
“Children who cannot hear do not usually complain that another child sings off-key.”
Clara sat forward.
“What happened?”
The smile disappeared.
“He vanished from school after the mine trouble.”
“For how long?”
“Nearly three weeks.”
“When he returned…”
She stopped.
Clara waited.
“He had bandages around his head.”
“Both ears?”
The teacher nodded.
“He would not speak.”
“Could he hear?”
“No.”
“The company doctor told us a fever had damaged his hearing.”
“Did he have fever?”
“I never saw him ill before.”
The teacher’s eyes filled.
“His mother looked terrified.”
“Did she say anything?”
“One thing.”
Clara leaned closer.
“What?”
“She told me Elias had seen something God should never have allowed a child to see.”
Clara’s hands went cold.
“Then?”
“Two months later she was dead.”
“How?”
“They said pneumonia.”
The teacher looked toward the window.
“But that winter I stopped believing what ‘they said.’”
Clara returned to the ranch after dark.
Elias waited on the porch.
Arms folded.
Expression furious.
The dog sat beside him.
Clara climbed down.
Elias signed sharply.
LATE.
She signed:
SORRY.
He pointed toward the road.
ALONE.
Clara’s own anger rose.
She took out the notepad.
You do not order me.
Elias read.
Immediately his expression changed.
He looked ashamed.
He wrote:
No.
Then:
I worried.
Clara’s anger softened but did not vanish.
Then say worried. Not command.
Elias nodded.
He wrote:
I worried.
She looked at him.
Then smiled faintly.
Good.
Inside, she placed her copied notes on the table.
Elias read.
He reached his father’s name.
Stopped.
Clara watched.
He read the mine report twice.
Then the teacher’s statement.
His hands began shaking.
Clara placed the copper fragment beside the paper.
Elias looked toward her.
She wrote:
Your father did not run. I don’t believe it.
His eyes filled.
He wrote:
Why care?
Clara stared.
He added:
Not your father. Not your pain.
The question wounded her.
Not because he intended it cruelly.
Because somewhere inside Elias still believed his life was something other people would tolerate only at distance.
Clara took the pencil.
You are my husband.
She stopped.
Then added:
Not joke.
Elias stared.
Clara’s heart pounded.
She had not planned to say it.
He read it again.
Then looked at her.