Page 11 of Mail Order Moose

They did not stay too late. David stood before anyone could suggest another hand, and Ella knew he had remembered. Lula hugged her at the door with one arm and whispered, “You are coming again.”

Ella did not answer, which Lula accepted as neither agreement nor refusal but a beginning.

Outside, the night had gone hard and clear. The stars seemed closer in Alaska than they ever had in Beckham, not friendlier, only nearer. Snow crusted beneath their boots as they walked the path toward home. David carried the lantern low enough that the light fell on the ground before them rather than in Ella’s eyes.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The quiet after laughter had a different shape than the quiet before it. It did not press against her. It settled.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” David asked at last.

Ella watched the lantern light move over the path. The truthful answer startled her because it was not complicated.

“I did,” she said.

David’s steps did not change, but she felt his attention turn gently toward her. “I’m glad.”

She waited for him to say more. Men often did when pleased. They filled the space with teasing or praise until the thing that had felt small and safe became large enough to frighten her. David let the answer remain the size she had made it.

They had nearly reached their cabin when he said, “Someday, if you wanted, we might invite them to our place.”

Ella stopped so quickly that the hem of her skirt brushed his boot.

“Not tomorrow,” David said at once.

She looked at him.

“Not soon,” he added. “Only someday. If you wanted.”

The thought of it opened in her chest like a trapdoor. People in their cabin. Chairs moved from their places. Dishes to prepare and too few plates. Lula laughing near the stove. Sebastian filling the room with his shoulders and his voice. David watching her to see whether she was managing, which was kind but also meant there would be managing to do.

“Our cabin is small,” she said.

“It is.”

“We have only two chairs.”

“Sebastian can sit on the wood box. It might improve him.”

The corner of Ella’s mouth moved before she could prevent it.

David saw but did not point it out. “We would do it your way,” he said. “If we ever did.”

Her way.

Ella had not considered that hosting could have a way that belonged to her. In Beckham, gatherings belonged to the loudest woman in the room or the oldest one, sometimes both. In Yeti, Lula had made supper into a game and Sebastian had made losing into a performance. Ella had assumed inviting people meant opening the door and surrendering the house to whatever came through it.

But perhaps there could be only four people. Perhaps supper could be simple and served in bowls so plates did not matter. Perhaps cards could be set out before anyone arrived, the chairs placed where she wanted them, the kettle already filled, the extra wood stacked outside so no one went rummaging.

Perhaps people could come into a room without taking it from her.

Chapter Five

The storm came earlier than anyone had expected, which was another way of saying it came before anyone was ready to admit winter had arrived.

Snow had fallen before in Yeti. Ella had seen it dust the roofs, gather in the seams of the woodpile, and cling to spruce trees as if someone had sifted flour over the whole town. That snow had been pretty in a cold, inconvenient sort of way. It had made the paths brighter and the mud less certain. This snow was different.

Ella woke before dawn because the cabin was too quiet. Not peaceful. The sort of quiet that meant the world outside had changed without permission.

She lay still a moment, listening to David breathe from the pallet near the stove. The fire had burned low. The roof groaned once above them. Somewhere beyond the door, wind dragged itself along the cabin wall and then struck the corner hard enough to make the latch tremble.