Samuel wrapped his arms around her.
He kissed her forehead.
Then her cheek.
Then, with the gentle familiarity of a love that had outlasted youth, fear, hardship, and years of ordinary work, he kissed her mouth.
"Still glad you did?" he whispered.
Clara looked into his eyes.
"More than ever."
And together they returned to the warmth of their room.
It was not the first time Clara had helped her husband make peace with the past.
It would not be the last.
But something about that morning changed the way Samuel carried his memories.
For the first time, he stopped treating the sealed wall as a question waiting to be answered.
He began to see it as a door that had already been opened.
And beyond it lay not another mystery, but the remaining years of his life.
Years he still had the power to live.
By the following spring, Clara's roses had begun growing beyond the boundaries of the little stone garden Samuel built beside the front porch.
There were twelve bushes now.
Some produced pale pink blossoms.
Others opened into deep red flowers with thick, velvety petals.
The oldest plants had become so large that Samuel constructed a wooden trellis to keep their branches from covering the front steps.
Clara watched him work one afternoon while she sat beneath the porch roof, sorting dried lavender into small linen bags.
He had been struggling with the same stubborn post for nearly twenty minutes.
"Samuel."
He ignored her.
She smiled.
"Samuel Thorne."
He looked over his shoulder.
"What?"
"You're putting that post in crooked."
He glanced at the timber.
"No, I'm not."
She raised an eyebrow.
He examined it again.
Then sighed.
"Maybe a little."
"A little?"
He gave her a wounded look.
"Are you going to supervise the entire operation?"
"Someone has to."
Samuel shook his head.
"Thirty years ago, you thought I was a handsome and capable mountain farmer."
Clara laughed.
"I still think you're handsome."
He looked at her.
"And capable?"
She pretended to consider.
"Some days."
Samuel placed one hand over his heart.
"Woman, you wound me."
She laughed harder.
Then he stepped onto the porch and bent to kiss her.
Clara reached up and touched his beard.
"There's my handsome husband."
His expression softened.
"You know something?"
"What?"
"I'd build you a hundred crooked trellises."
She smiled.
"I know."
"And a hundred straight ones if you asked."
She pulled him closer.
"I'd rather have you sitting beside me."
Samuel looked at the unfinished garden.
Then at his wife.
Finally, he laid the hammer down.
"Well, I suppose the roses can wait."
He settled beside her on the porch bench.
Clara leaned against his shoulder.
They watched the afternoon sunlight move slowly across the meadow.
Below the house, the orchard was beginning to bloom.