Page 14 of Mail Order Mercy

Dorothy glanced toward the children. Clara had fallen asleep with her head against the wall. Tommy was curled beside her, one hand still resting on a wooden horse Albert had carved from scrap. Grace slept in Dorothy’s arms, full and warm. The sight seemed to settle Albert’s courage and unsettle it all at once.

Dorothy knew before he spoke that something in the room had changed. Albert held his hat the way a man held a fragile thing he did not know where to set down. He had come without supplies, without a task, without anything that could explain his presence except himself. That made her pulse quicken. She wished for a leaking roof or an empty wood box, anything practical enough to keep whatever was coming from touching her heart.

“May I speak with you?” he asked. “Plainly, if I can manage it.”

Dorothy’s hands tightened around Grace. “Plain speech seems to be all we have managed lately.”

Albert almost smiled, but the weight in his chest would not allow it. “Marry me, Dorothy.”

She stared at him as if he had spoken in Norwegian. “What?”

For one breath, Dorothy felt as if the cabin had tipped beneath her. Marriage was a word from another life, one that belonged to Henry’s arm around her shoulders and babies placed in her waiting hands. Hearing it from Albert made the word both impossible and strangely solid. A foolish part of her wanted to say yes simply because the children would be safe. Another part drew back in horror at the thought of making Albert into a shelter instead of a man.

“Marry me,” he said again, because the first time had not killed him. “I can give you steady wages, steady wood, steady hands, and a home where the children do not have to wonder whether tomorrow will be warm.”

“You make it sound like a business agreement,” Dorothy said. “Food for mending, wood for supper, marriage for a roof that does not leak.”

Dorothy stood very still. Albert could see every defense rise in her face, one after another. Shock. Suspicion. Fear. Something softer he did not dare name. He rushed on before courage could leave him.

“I am not asking you for romance,” he said. “I know your heart belonged to Henry. I would never demand what you cannot give. But we are friends, or near enough to grow into it properly. I respect you. I care for the children. I can provide steady wages, steady wood, steady hands. You could keep this home, and I could help make it safer.”

“A very practical proposal,” Dorothy said faintly.

Albert heard the hurt beneath the words and hated himself for putting it there. “Practical things matter.” He paused for a moment, struggling for words to make it sound like more than the practical arrangement was meant to be. “I do not know how to ask any other way. If I speak too warmly, I fear I will frighten you. If I speak too plainly, I sound like a fool with a ledger.”

“They do.” Dorothy shifted Grace carefully to her shoulder. “Food matters. Wood matters. A roof that does not drip on my children matters. But I will not become a lifelong punishment you have assigned yourself because Henry died.”

Albert flinched. “That is not what this is.”

“Then say it.” Her voice trembled, but she did not look away. “Say this is not a debt you owe Henry.”

She needed him to say it because she needed to believe there was room in the proposal for her, not only for Henry’s memory or the children’s needs. If Albert married her as penance, every loaf of bread and every stick of wood would become another link in a chain neither of them could bear forever. Dorothy would rather remain poor than become the shape of his regret.

“And what do you want, Albert?” Dorothy asked. “Not what Henry would want. Not what the children need. What do you want?”

Albert’s fingers tightened around the brim of his hat. Henry’s name stood between them, but not as strongly as it once had. Albert could feel the difference, and that difference frightened him. “It began that way,” he said honestly. “I will not lie to you. I came because I should have come sooner. I helped because Henry was my friend and I had failed him.”

Dorothy’s face closed a little.

“But I am standing here now because I choose to,” Albert said. “Not because Henry can ask it of me. Not because guilt wakes me in the night. Because when I think of tomorrow, I think of this cabin. I think of Clara’s questions and Tommy’s mischief and Grace grabbing my beard. I think of you trying to hold the whole world together with two hands that are already tired.”

Dorothy swallowed. “Why?”

Albert knew the answer then or at least knew enough of it to be afraid. Because your laugh stayed with me. Because your courage shames me and steadies me at once. Because I want to come home to this room even when it is too small, too noisy, and full of children’s questions. Because somewhere between guilt and duty, my heart found its own reason.

He could not say those things. Not yet. If he spoke of love, Dorothy might think he was trying to replace Henry or hurry grief into a shape that suited him. So, he gave her the truth he could manage.

“Because this is where I want to be,” he said.

His answer should not have been enough. It was not love, not courtship, not the sort of declaration a young woman might dream over before sleep. But Dorothy was no longer the girl who had dreamed without knowing the cost of winter. She had learned that wanting to be somewhere could be its own kind of vow. Albert was not promising pretty words. He was offering presence, and presence had become precious to her.

“That is not an answer,” Dorothy whispered, though there was no anger in it.

Albert looked down at his hat. “It is the truest one I can give you tonight.”

Dorothy looked at him for a long time. Her heart wanted more than practical promises, but practical promises weren’t nothing. They had kept her children fed. They had put wood in the box and mended the roof. They had come back day after day when grief, pride, and loneliness had all told her not to expect anyone.

“If I say yes,” she said slowly, “it will not be because I believe you can save me. I am not asking for rescue.”