Page 17 of Mail Order Moose

After the second game, David gathered the cards but did not put them away. “You did this because I like cards.”

Ella traced the edge of the score paper with one finger. “You looked at the box yesterday.”

“Did I?”

“Twice.”

He leaned back, watching her. “You see everything.”

“No.”

“Enough.”

Ella did not know what to do with the gentleness in his voice. It had been happening more often lately, this trouble of not knowing where to put what he gave her. Praise could be folded away if a person was careful. Gratitude could be answered with more work. But gentleness remained in the room after words ended.

David placed the cards squarely in the box. “I hope you do not think I am waiting for you to become different.”

The words landed so quietly that at first she was not sure she had heard them correctly. She looked up.

David’s hands rested on either side of the card box. He was not smiling now. He was not grave either. Only honest in the way he had been when he told her the first night that she did not have to be afraid of him.

“I know folks expect quiet people to grow louder once they are comfortable,” he said. “As if quiet is something to avoid. I think you’re perfect as you are, Ella.”

Her throat tightened at her name.

He looked down briefly, as if choosing the safest path through words mattered as much as choosing the safest path through snow. “I would rather know you slowly than force you to become someone louder.”

Ella sat very still.

There were things a woman might say to that. Lula would have found five of them, all bold and bright and exactly suited to the moment. Ella had none. Every word in her seemed too small, and every silence seemed too full.

David did not reach for her. He did not ask whether she understood or whether she felt the same or whether she could give him some answer. He only waited, and his waiting did not feel empty. It felt like a chair set in the proper place before she needed it.

Ella looked at his hands beside the card box. Broad hands, rough from work, careful with cards, careful with kettles, careful with her. She remembered the first day in the mercantile, how he had not demanded speech from her when everyone else seemed to be listening for it. She remembered his pallet by the stove, prepared before gratitude could be earned. She remembered him placing one spoonful into her bowl, not because he did not value what she gave, but because he valued her too.

Cherished was a word she had not trusted before. It sounded too fine for flour sacks and snowmelt and gloves with mended thumbs. But perhaps that was why she had misunderstood it. Perhaps being cherished was not always a man making speeches or bringing flowers that would freeze before morning. Perhaps it was being allowed to remain herself while someone learned the shape of her silence and did not mistake it for absence.

She reached across the table and straightened the card box, though it was already straight.

“I do not know how to be loud,” she said.

David’s expression softened. “I know.”

“I might never be.”

“Then I will not wait for that.”

There was no reason for the words to make her eyes sting. They were practical, almost. As plain as setting aside flour before the sack emptied or patching gloves before winter found the seams. But they did.

Before she could stop herself, Ella reached out and covered his large hands with one of hers. It was odd how tiny her hands looked beside his. She squeezed his hands just once, then released them. The touch of his bare skin on hers had a surprising reaction. She felt butterflies in her belly and her hands tingled. Odd.

Ella drew in a careful breath. “I like playing cards with you.”

It was not all she meant. It was not even close. But David received it as if he understood that some truths were easier spoken than others.

“I like playing cards with you too,” he said.

Then, after a moment, he slid the box toward her. “One more hand?”