Page 20 of Mail Order Moose

The women met the next morning at Maggie’s kitchen table because there was no good reason to delay dread except cowardice, and Ella was tired of being both afraid and ashamed of being afraid.

Lula arrived first, cheeks red from the cold and voice already filling the room before her shawl was off. Belle came next with a basket of mending. Maggie poured coffee into chipped cups and said nothing about the way Ella kept smoothing the ledger cover with both palms.

David had walked her as far as the porch, then stopped. “Do you want me inside?”

Ella had wanted him there so badly it embarrassed her. She had also known that if he explained for her, the fear would remain lodged where it was. “No,” she said.

He had nodded once. “I’ll be nearby.”

Nearby was not the same as speaking for her. Ella found she could tolerate that.

Now the women looked at her with waiting faces. Not unkind faces. That did not make it easier. Disappointment could wear kindness for a little while before it showed its teeth.

Ella opened the ledger.

“There was an error in the cold house records,” she said.

Lula’s brows drew together. “What sort of error?”

“The flour was marked on the south wall, but one sack had been moved to the back after the storm. Beans and dried apples were moved as well. Some packages were not marked properly.” Ella swallowed. “The totals are still enough, but the locations were wrong. If anyone had taken from the shelves by the record alone, we could have thought we had less than we did. Or missed what needed using first.”

There. It was said.

Ella waited for the disappointment. She had already prepared herself for Lula’s sharp concern, Belle’s careful questions, Maggie’s quiet worry. She could bear those things if she stood still enough. Perhaps.

Maggie set down the coffee pot. “You found it before we needed it.”

Ella blinked.

Belle leaned forward. “And before winter deepens.”

“That is why we check records,” Sally said. “Not because we expect them to be perfect, but because we expect winter not to be.”

Lula reached across the table and squeezed Ella’s wrist. “If I had been keeping those records, we would have found out when I tried to make bread from a sack of dried apples.”

A laugh moved around the table, gentle and tired. Ella did not laugh. She was too busy trying to understand that no one was angry.

“I should have checked sooner,” she said.

“You checked when you said you would,” Maggie replied. “And you checked well enough to find what others missed.”

Belle nodded. “We should mark every moved bundle today. Different colors, perhaps. Red for flour, blue for beans, green for apples.”

Lula brightened. “I can tie ribbons. I have some ugly ones Sebastian claims are pretty.”

This time Ella almost smiled.

They spent the morning in the cold house with cold fingers and practical voices. Ella corrected the ledger. Not by crossing out so hard the old marks vanished, though she wanted to. She drew one neat line through the wrong location, wrote the proper one beneath it, and added the date beside the change. Then she made a new page for moved goods, because movement was now something worth tracking.

No one took the ledger from her. No one suggested someone else should keep it instead.

*****

David was waiting by Maggie’s woodpile when Ella came out, his hat pulled low and his hands tucked beneath his arms for warmth. He did not ask from a distance. He waited until she reached him, then matched his steps to hers as they started toward home.

“How did it go?” he asked.

Ella watched the path. It had iced overnight, and the safest places were not always the smoothest. “They thanked me.”