The first thing Norah Prescott saw when the cabin door opened was not the man she had crossed half a continent to marry.
“Make bread.”
“That’s all?”
“No. I’ll probably meddle in several other things while you’re gone.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he called Daniel.
That was the first crack in the wall.
The second came three nights later.
Bess’s cough turned into fever.
Norah woke to Lucy shaking her shoulder.
“Something’s wrong.”
Bess was burning hot.
Her breathing came shallow and fast.
Eli was already dressing.
“I’ll ride for Dr. Wallace.”
“At night?”
“It’s only nine miles.”
“It’s raining.”
“He came for Mama.”
Norah heard everything inside those four words.
He came too late for Mama.
She touched Bess’s forehead.
“Go.”
Eli looked at her.
Norah said, “I’ll keep her breathing. You bring the doctor.”
He rode into the storm.
For four hours Norah sat beside Bess.
She cooled her skin with damp cloths. Kept her upright when the coughing worsened. Coaxed water between cracked lips. Sang the same hymn her own mother had sung when storms shook their farmhouse windows.
Lucy sat on the floor beside the bed.
“Is she going to die?”
Norah did not lie.
“I don’t know.”
Lucy’s face crumpled.
Norah caught her hand.
“But she is not dying alone, and neither are you.”
Near dawn, hoofbeats sounded outside.
Eli came through the door soaked to the bone with Dr. Wallace behind him.
Bess had pneumonia.
But the doctor listened to her lungs, examined what Norah had done, and nodded.
“You kept her ahead of it.”
“That’s enough?”
“It might be.”
Three days later, Bess sat up and asked for biscuits.
Eli went outside.
Norah found him behind the barn crying so silently she almost walked past him.
She did not touch him.
She simply stood beside him.
After a while he wiped his face with his sleeve.
“I thought it was happening again.”
“I know.”
“I thought I was going to come back and—”
“I know.”
He looked at her.
“Why did you stay?”
Norah thought about Cincinnati.
The boardinghouse.
The endless rows of white wedding dresses.
The sensible life waiting if she returned.
Then she looked toward the cabin, where Tom was shouting because one of the twins had put a frog in his boot.
“I haven’t entirely figured that out yet.”
Eli nodded.
“You will.”
That night Norah wrote Silas Holt a letter.
The children are well.
Bess has been ill but is recovering.
Eli rode eighteen miles through rain to bring the doctor and returned before sunrise. You should know that he is braver than is reasonable and more tired than he admits.
Lucy needs to know where everyone is because she is afraid people who leave will not come back.
Martha pretends she does not care what anyone thinks. May actually does not.
Daniel can repair almost anything except his own shirts.
Clara sleeps with her boots beside her bed.
Tom calls me Mama.
I have not corrected him.
There are seven children here, Mr. Holt.
Not three.
When you return, you and I will discuss that.
She paused.
Then added one final sentence.
I am still here.
She sent the letter with the next supply rider.
Three weeks and two days after Norah Prescott knocked on the cabin door, Silas Holt came home.
Norah was kneeling in the garden with dirt on both hands when she heard a horse.
She looked up.
A large gray gelding crossed the lower pasture.
The man riding it was broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and weathered by a life lived mostly outdoors. He wore a heavy coat despite the spring sun, and a reddish scar crossed one knuckle where his hand rested on the reins.
The photograph had not shown the scar.
It had also failed to show how tired he looked.
Silas saw her.
His horse slowed.
For several seconds neither of them moved.
Then Tom exploded out of the cabin.
“Papa!”
Silas barely got one boot to the ground before Tom collided with him.
He lifted the child with one arm.
The others poured from the house.
Lucy stopped several feet away as if she could not quite trust the sight.
Eli did not run.
He stood in the doorway.
But his shoulders changed.
That was enough.
Silas held Tom and looked at all seven of his children.
Then he looked at Norah.
“You stayed.”
Not hello.
Not I’m sorry.
You stayed.
Norah wiped soil from her hands.
“You noticed.”
Tom twisted around in his father’s arms and pointed at her.
“That’s Mama.”
Silas’s face went still.
Lucy said, “Tom.”
“What? She is.”
Silas looked at Norah over the boy’s head.
Norah lifted one eyebrow.
“You and I need to talk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Eli laughed.
It was the first time Norah had heard him laugh loudly.
That evening the children ate more slowly than usual because they were too busy talking to their father.
Everyone had something to tell him.
Martha had found a snake.
May had killed it.
Martha insisted they had both killed it.
Daniel had repaired the west gate.
Clara had lost a tooth.
Tom had learned a word Norah refused to let him repeat indoors.
Bess had almost died, which Lucy announced with devastating simplicity.
Silas stopped chewing.
His eyes went to Bess.
Then to Eli.
Then Norah.
“Almost?”
“She’s well now,” Norah said.
Eli added, “Norah stayed up three nights.”
Silas looked down at his plate.
Something passed across his face.
Shame, perhaps.
Or the realization that while he had been trapped behind snow, a woman he barely knew had been carrying the weight he had asked her to share without telling her how heavy it was.
After the younger children slept, Norah and Silas sat across from each other at the kitchen table.
Eli lingered nearby.
Norah looked at him.
“You can stay.”
Silas said, “He should stay.”
Eli took a chair.
Norah folded her hands.
“Why did you tell me about only three?”
Silas did not pretend not to understand.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That you’d say no.”
“Then you knew seven might matter.”
“Yes.”
“And you decided I did not deserve the choice.”
“Yes.”
Eli stared at his father.
Silas continued.
“There isn’t a good defense.”
“No.”
“I can explain.”
“That is different from defending.”
He nodded.
“My wife died two winters ago. Sarah.”
Norah glanced at the blue cup on the shelf.
Silas noticed.
“She loved that cup.”
“No one touches it.”
“Lucy wouldn’t let me put it away.”
Norah waited.
Silas rubbed a hand across his face.
“After Sarah died, everything started coming apart by inches. Nothing dramatic at first. Supper got later. Clothes stayed dirty longer. Lucy stopped sleeping. Eli stopped being a boy. I told myself we were managing.”
Eli’s jaw tightened.
Silas looked at his son.
“We weren’t.”
“No,” Eli said.
Silas accepted it.
“When I saw your notice, Miss Prescott, I wrote because you sounded practical.”
Norah’s eyebrows rose.
“Romantic.”
“I didn’t think romance would survive February here.”
“Possibly the wisest thing you’ve said.”
A quiet smile touched his mouth.
Then disappeared.
“I wrote three because I thought if you came, maybe once you saw them—”
“You thought I would be trapped.”
His face tightened.
“I thought you might care before you had time to run.”
“That is not better.”
“I know.”
Silence.
Then Eli spoke.
“She could have left.”
Silas looked at him.
“She knew on the first day.”
“I assumed that.”
“She stayed.”
Silas looked back at Norah.
“Yes.”
Norah held his gaze.
“I did not stay because you fooled me.”
“I know.”
“I stayed because your children needed someone, and because by the time I understood how angry I ought to be, Tom had attached himself to my leg.”
From the loft came a sleepy voice.
“I heard that.”
Norah looked toward the ceiling.
“Go to sleep, Tom.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Silas closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, they were wet.
He stood.
For one terrible second Norah thought he was leaving the room.
Instead he went to the stove.
“What are you doing?”
“Making coffee.”
“It’s nearly midnight.”
“I have been told you sit up when something needs doing.”
“That does not explain the coffee.”
Silas glanced back.
“I’m trying to do something.”
Norah watched him fill the kettle.
Eli stood.
“I’m going to bed.”
At the doorway he stopped.
“Pa?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t mess this up.”
Then he disappeared.
Silas stared after him.
Norah covered her mouth.
“Did he just threaten me?”
“He has been running this house for two years. You should be grateful he didn’t fire you.”
Silas laughed.
The sound was low and surprised, as though he had forgotten he still knew how.
Over the next weeks, Norah discovered that the man from the letters existed.
He simply existed beneath several layers of guilt.
Silas rose before dawn but began returning for breakfast.
He asked Lucy what she was reading.
He let Daniel show him how he had repaired the gate instead of inspecting it silently.
He took the twins into town separately so each could choose something without the other answering first.
He sat beside Bess when she coughed.
He took Eli fishing.
That mattered most.
They left one Sunday morning and returned after dark with two trout, no explanation, and something easier between them.
Norah never asked what had been said.
Some conversations should belong to the people who survived needing them.
Silas asked Norah to walk with him the following evening.
They followed the Sweetwater River until the cabin disappeared behind cottonwoods.
The mountains were purple in the distance.
Silas stopped beside a fallen log.
“I need to ask you something.”
“You do that frequently.”
“I’m trying to improve.”
“Proceed.”
He looked at her.
“Do you still intend to marry me?”
Norah stared toward the river.
“I crossed nine days of country intending to.”
“That was before.”
“Yes.”
“Before seven.”
“Yes.”
“Before I wasn’t there.”
“Yes.”
“Before you learned I was a coward.”
Norah turned.
“You were afraid.”
“That’s generous.”
“No. Cowardice would have been continuing to lie after you came home.”
Silas said nothing.
Norah studied him.
“You hurt me before you met me.”
“I know.”
“You made a decision for me because you believed you knew what I could bear.”
“I know.”
“Do it again and I will leave.”
His face changed.
“I believe you.”
“You should.”
“I do.”
The wind moved through the grass between them.
Then Silas asked, “Is that a yes?”
Norah almost smiled.
“It is not a no.”
“I’ve been told those are different things.”
“They are.”
He nodded solemnly.
“I can wait.”
She turned toward home.
“You waited three weeks too long already.”
He stared.
Norah kept walking.
Behind her she heard him laugh.
Then he hurried to catch up.
By late May, the mountain snow began melting faster than anyone expected.
The Sweetwater rose a foot in three days.
Then another.
Silas watched the current from the riverbank with Eli.
“If it climbs another six inches, we move the stock uphill.”
Norah stood beside them.
“And the house?”
“High enough.”
“You’re certain?”
“No.”
“That is an irritating answer.”
“It is an honest one.”
She looked at him.
“Improvement.”
That night rain began.
Not a spring shower.
A pounding, relentless rain that hammered the roof and turned the yard into black mud.
At midnight Silas woke everyone.
“Up. Boots on.”
Norah was already moving.
Lucy appeared fully dressed.
Clara had slept with her boots beside her bed and now looked vindicated for the first time in her life.
“What happened?” Eli asked.
“North bank gave way.”
The river was in the lower pasture.
They could hear it.
A deep roar beyond the darkness.
Silas and Eli ran for the barn.
Norah counted children.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
She counted again.
“Where’s Tom?”
The room froze.
Lucy’s face went white.
“He was here.”
“Tom!”
No answer.
Norah climbed the ladder to the loft.
Empty bed.
Blanket on the floor.
Window cracked open.
Then she heard Clara scream from downstairs.
“Benjamin!”
The old horse.
Tom’s favorite.
The animal had been left in the small south pen because of a strained leg.
Norah’s blood went cold.
She ran outside.
Silas was halfway across the yard.
“Tom is gone!”
He stopped so fast he nearly fell.
“What?”
“Benjamin.”
Silas understood instantly.
The south pen sat below the house.
Closer to the river.
He ran.
Norah followed.
“Stay at the cabin!” he shouted.
“No!”
“Norah!”
She kept running.
Water already covered the lower trail.
Lantern light swung wildly in Silas’s hand.
“Tom!”
Nothing.
Then—
“Papa!”
The sound came from darkness.
Silas plunged forward.
Norah caught his coat.
“The ground drops there!”
He stopped one step before a washout where the trail had vanished into black water.
On the far side stood the small livestock shed.
Tom was on the roof.
Benjamin stood chest-deep in the pen below.
“Papa!”
Silas looked around.
The bridge to the south pen had washed away.
Eli arrived behind them carrying rope.
“I knew you’d need this.”
Silas took it.
“No.”
Eli’s face hardened.
“He’s my brother.”
“You stay here.”
“No.”
Norah grabbed both men.
“Argue later.”
They tied one end of the rope around the thick cottonwood nearest the bank.
Silas wrapped the other around his waist.
“I’m going across.”
Norah looked at the current.
“You’ll be swept.”
“There’s a fence line under the water.”
“You can’t see it.”
“I built it.”
Eli said, “I’ll go.”
Silas turned so sharply the boy stepped back.
“No.”
“Pa—”
“No. You have carried enough for this family.”
The words struck Eli silent.
Silas gripped his son’s shoulder.
“This one is mine.”
Then he entered the water.
The current hit him at the knees.
Then the thighs.
Then the waist.
Norah and Eli held the rope.
Halfway across, Silas disappeared.
Lucy screamed behind them.
The rope snapped tight.
Norah’s palms burned.
“Hold!”
Eli planted his feet.
For one horrifying second there was nothing but black water.
Then Silas surfaced ten feet downstream.
He caught the submerged fence.
Pulled himself upright.
Moved again.
When he reached the shed, Tom was sobbing so hard he could barely breathe.
“I wanted Benjamin!”
“I know.”
“He was scared!”
“I know.”
Silas climbed onto the roof and pulled him close.
The return was worse.
Silas tied Tom against his chest beneath his coat.
Norah could see only the little boy’s pale face.
“Look at me!” she shouted.
Tom’s eyes found hers.
“Mama!”
“I’m right here!”
The current struck Silas.
He staggered.
“Mama!”
“Right here!”
Another step.
Then another.
Eli hauled the rope.
Norah pulled with everything in her body.
Silas reached the washout.
Eli grabbed his arm.
Norah seized Tom.
She fell backward into the mud with the child against her chest.
Tom wrapped himself around her.
“I’m sorry.”
Norah could barely breathe.
“You are going to be.”
“I wanted Benjamin.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t like loud noises.”
Norah began laughing.
She could not stop.
It came out mixed with tears.
Silas lay beside her in the mud staring at the sky.
Then he laughed too.
Eli sank down.
Soon all three adults were laughing like fools while the river tore half the south pasture away.
Benjamin survived.
The horse somehow reached a strip of high ground inside the pen and stood there until morning looking personally offended by the weather.
The flood took two fences, part of the barn foundation, thirty feet of road, and every row of onions Norah had planted.
It did not take the house.
At sunrise the family stood on the porch.
Seven children.
Silas.
Norah.
Nine people wrapped in blankets watching muddy water retreat.
Lucy moved closer to Norah.
Not touching.
Then touching.
Just her shoulder.
Silas saw it.
Later, when the children were asleep from exhaustion, he found Norah in the kitchen staring at the mud on her ruined shoes.
“You went after him.”
“So did you.”
“I’m his father.”
Norah looked up.
Silas’s voice broke slightly.
“You went after him.”
She understood what he was really asking.
What are you to us?
Norah stood.
“I told you I was staying.”
He crossed the room.
Slowly.
Giving her time to move.
She did not.
He stopped close enough that she could see the rain still caught in his eyelashes.
“Marry me.”
“That was the arrangement.”
“No.”
Silas shook his head.
“Not the arrangement.”
Norah’s heart beat faster.
“Then what?”
“Marry me because Tom calls you Mama and Lucy sleeps when you are in the house. Marry me because Eli trusts you enough to be sixteen. Marry me because my children laugh again.”
He swallowed.
“And marry me because when you walked out of that cabin tonight, I understood there are things worse than dying in a river.”
Norah said nothing.
Silas continued.
“I lied because I thought I had to trick someone into choosing this family.”
His eyes held hers.
“I did not understand that the right woman would see us clearly and choose for herself.”
Norah felt tears threaten.
She disliked crying during important conversations.
It interfered with accuracy.
“So now you understand?”
“Yes.”
“All seven?”
“All seven.”
“The damaged fences?”
“Yes.”
“The cow that kicks?”
“Yes.”
“Your son who rescues horses during floods?”
Silas sighed.
“Yes.”
“Your daughter who moves my flour every time I put it in the wrong cabinet?”
From the doorway Lucy said, “It is the wrong cabinet.”
Norah and Silas turned.
Lucy stood there in her nightdress.
Silas began laughing.
Norah pointed toward the loft.
“Bed.”
Lucy started climbing.
Then stopped.
“Are you marrying him?”
Norah looked at Silas.
“Yes.”
Lucy nodded.
“Good.”
She climbed another step.
Then looked back.
“But the flour stays on the left.”
Norah smiled.
“We’ll negotiate.”
The wedding took place three weeks later.
A traveling minister arrived in Sweetwater Valley on a dusty bay horse with a Bible, a stiff collar, and the expression of a man who had married enough frontier couples to know that asking too many questions only made the ceremony longer.
The entire Holt family stood beneath the cottonwoods.
Norah wore a simple cream-colored dress she had sewn herself.
For years she had stitched lace, pearls, satin, and silk for other women.
Her own wedding dress had no lace.
No pearls.
No train.
Tom stepped on the hem twice anyway.
Silas wore his cleanest dark coat.
Eli stood beside him.
Not behind him.
Beside him.
The minister looked at Silas.
“Do you intend to take this woman as your wife?”
“I do.”
Then at Norah.
“And do you intend to take this man as your husband?”
Norah glanced at the children.
Lucy was holding Clara’s hand.
The twins were whispering.
Daniel had mud on one knee despite being warned.
Bess was trying not to cough.
Tom was holding Norah’s fingers with both hands.
Eli met her eyes.
Six weeks earlier, he had opened the door expecting her to leave.
Now he gave one small nod.
Norah looked at Silas.
“I do.”
The minister pronounced them husband and wife.
Tom immediately asked, “Does that mean she can’t go back to Cincinnati?”
Everyone laughed.
Norah crouched in front of him.
“I was not planning to.”
“Ever?”
“Ever is a very long time.”
Tom’s face fell.
Norah touched his cheek.
“But I’m planning on tomorrow.”
He considered this.
“And after tomorrow?”
“I’m planning on that too.”
Tom nodded, satisfied.
“Good.”
Then he hugged her.
That summer, the Holt homestead changed.
Not magically.
The west fence still leaned.
The roof leaked near the chimney.
The cow still kicked.
Martha and May still switched dresses whenever they believed it would confuse strangers.
Bess’s cough returned whenever the nights turned cold.
Daniel destroyed three shirts repairing a wagon.
Lucy still counted everyone before bed.
But now Silas counted too.
Sometimes he found her in the hallway checking doors.
“You have seven,” he would say.
Lucy would answer, “I know.”
And go to sleep.
Eli turned seventeen in August.
Norah baked a cake.
He stared at it.
“What?”
“You made Tom one.”
“And?”
“I’m seventeen.”
“Does seventeen make you immune to cake?”
“No.”
“Then sit down.”
After supper Silas handed Eli a folded paper.
The boy opened it.
His face changed.
“What is this?”
“Half the north herd.”
Eli stared at his father.
“I can’t own half.”
“You can.”
“Why?”
“Because you earned more than that while I was gone.”
Eli shook his head.
“I was just doing what had to be done.”
Silas’s voice softened.
“You were a child doing what I should have made certain a child never had to do.”
The room went quiet.
Eli looked down.
Silas continued.
“I cannot give you those two years back.”
“No.”
“But I can stop pretending they cost you nothing.”
Eli’s eyes filled.
He folded the paper carefully.
Then he stood and hugged his father.
Awkwardly.
Hard.
Norah looked away because some moments should not have witnesses, even when everyone in the room could see.
Autumn came golden over Sweetwater Valley.
One afternoon Norah received a letter from Cincinnati.
Her former landlady wrote that Norah’s old room was still available if Wyoming had proved unsuitable.
Norah read the letter twice.
Silas came in carrying firewood.
“Bad news?”
“No.”
“Good?”
“Not exactly.”
She handed him the letter.
He read it.
His face became carefully neutral.
Norah recognized the expression.
Fear pretending to be manners.
“You could go back,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You would have a place.”
“Yes.”
He set the letter down.
“If you wanted.”
Norah stared at him.
Silas looked miserable.
She folded the letter.
“Do you want me to go?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look as if you’re helping me pack?”
“Because I promised I would never decide for you again.”
Norah’s irritation disappeared.
She crossed the kitchen.
“You remembered.”
“I remember most things that frighten me.”
“That must make marriage exhausting.”
“It does.”
She put the letter into the stove.
Silas watched it burn.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“You could have kept it.”
“I know.”
“Then why—”
Norah turned.
“Because I already chose.”
That winter was hard.
The first snow arrived in October.
By December, drifts reached the lower windows.
But there was enough wood.
Enough flour.
Enough salt pork.
Enough coffee, according to Silas.
Not nearly enough coffee, according to Norah.
On Christmas Eve, the children hung wool stockings beside the stove.
Norah discovered one extra stocking.
Small.
Unevenly stitched.
Clearly made by several inexperienced hands.
Her name had been sewn across the top.
N O R A H.
The N leaned left.
The H was enormous.
She touched it.
“Who made this?”
Seven children suddenly became fascinated by unrelated objects.
Norah looked at Silas.
He raised both hands.
“I was not involved.”
Tom finally confessed.
“All of us.”
“Even Eli?”
Eli groaned.
“Especially Eli,” Lucy said.
Norah looked at the stocking again.
For years she had sewn beautiful things for people who paid her.
This crooked piece of wool was the finest thing she had ever been given.
She sat down quickly.
Tom climbed into her lap.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You look like crying.”
“I have smoke in my eyes.”
“The stove is over there.”
“Tom.”
“Yes, Mama?”
Norah pressed her face into his hair.
“Nothing.”
Years later, people in Sweetwater Valley would tell the story incorrectly.
That was the trouble with stories.
They improved themselves in the telling.
Some said Norah Prescott arrived to marry a mountain man and found seven starving orphans.
They were not orphans.
Some said Silas had abandoned them.
He had not.
Some said Norah stayed because she fell in love the moment she saw the children.
That was not true either.
Love had not arrived like lightning.
It came like chores.
One morning after another.
A bowl filled.
A fever watched.
A shirt mended.
A frightened child reassured.
A tired boy told to go fishing.
A man forgiven only after he learned how not to make the same mistake twice.
Years after that first April afternoon, Silas asked Norah the question again.
They were sitting on the porch.
Tom was fourteen now, tall and impossible.
Lucy was preparing to marry a schoolteacher in Rawlins.
Eli owned land north of the original homestead.
The twins were still impossible to tell apart when they wanted to be.
The mountains looked exactly as they had the day Norah arrived.
“Why did you stay?” Silas asked.
Norah glanced at him.
“You’ve asked before.”
“I know.”
“And I answered.”
“You gave me part of the answer.”
She considered this.
Then looked through the open cabin door.
The blue cup still sat on the shelf.
Sarah’s cup.
They had never removed it.
Norah had never wanted to.
A family did not have to erase one mother to make room for another.
She looked across the yard where Eli’s children were chasing Tom with sticks.
“When I arrived,” Norah said, “I thought I had come to find a husband.”
Silas smiled faintly.
“A disappointing beginning.”
“Very.”
“I was three weeks late.”
“And short four children in your description.”
“I have apologized.”
“Not enough.”
“I suspected that.”
Norah leaned against his shoulder.
“I stayed because on that first day I looked at seven children and realized none of them were the problem.”
Silas waited.
“They were just seven people who had been handed a problem too large for them.”
“And you thought you could fix it?”
“No.”
Norah shook her head.
“I thought I could help carry it.”
Silas was silent.
Down by the barn, Tom shouted something inappropriate.
Norah closed her eyes.
“Some burdens remain stubbornly heavy.”
Silas laughed.
Then he took her hand.
Norah looked at the mountains.
She remembered Cincinnati.
The train.
The cold porch.
The boy holding a baby.
Seven children watching her from a kitchen.
She remembered the exact moment she could have turned around.
No one would have blamed her.
Not even Eli.
Maybe especially not Eli.
She could have taken the next stagecoach east.
She could have returned to sewing other women’s wedding dresses.
She could have spent the rest of her life telling people about the dishonest mountain man in Wyoming who promised three children and delivered seven.
Instead, she had set down her carpetbag.
She had removed her coat.
She had asked where the flour was.
It had seemed like such a small decision.
But lives often changed that way.
Not with trumpets.
Not with speeches.
Not with certainty.
Sometimes a person simply saw hungry children at three in the afternoon and decided supper mattered more than fear.
Sometimes staying for one night became staying until morning.
Morning became a week.
A week became a life.
And sometimes the wrong door opened onto exactly the place a person had been searching for.
Silas squeezed her hand.
“Worth the journey?” he asked.
It was the sentence he had written beneath his signature all those years before.
Norah looked at him.
At the cabin.
At the land.
At the children who were no longer children.
At the home that had not been waiting for her ready-made, but had become hers because she had helped build it.
Then she smiled.
“Yes.”
A crash sounded from the barn.
Tom yelled, “Everything’s fine!”
Norah stood immediately.
Silas sighed.
“Still worth it?”
She started down the steps.
“Ask me after I find out what he broke.”
Silas followed her.
And together they walked toward the noise.
THE END.
