Page 28 of Mail Order Mercy

“She says many things.”

“What did she say about standing?”

“That I should wait.”

“And what did you hear?”

“That I should wait until she left.”

Clara, seated at the table, covered her mouth. Tommy did not bother. He laughed until he slid off the storage chest.

Dorothy guided Albert back to bed. “If you fall in this cabin, there is nowhere for the rest of us to stand.”

“I will try to be considerate.”

His recovery was slow enough to teach them patience and quick enough to make gratitude easier. Dorothy read to him in the evenings. Clara brought him sums copied onto scraps of paper. Tommy offered stones with healing properties he invented as needed. Grace learned to pull herself upright against the side of the bed and shouted whenever Albert failed to applaud.

One evening, after the children slept, Dorothy sat on the edge of the bed and found Albert watching her.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“You have never looked at nothing that way.”

He touched her wedding ring. “I was thinking I nearly lost the chance to be your husband properly.”

Heat rose beneath her skin. “You are my husband properly.”

“I have spent every night on the floor.”

“Because we agreed to wait.”

“We did.”

Dorothy looked toward the curtain, then toward the children sleeping on their pallet. The cabin offered no privacy that did not have to be invented. Their whole life had been built by inventing room where none appeared to exist.

She untied the curtain from one side and drew it farther across the bed. “Tonight,” she said softly, “you may stay.”

Albert’s eyes searched hers. “Because you were afraid?”

“Because I am no longer afraid.”

He kissed her with a tenderness that made the small room fall away. They moved carefully because of his bruises, quietly because of the children, and slowly because neither wanted this beginning mistaken for repayment or rescue. Dorothy felt no betrayal in welcoming him. Henry belonged to the life that had made her. Albert belonged to the life she was choosing now.

Later, with her head on his shoulder and Grace stirring in the basket beside them, Albert whispered, “Your floor has lost its finest tenant.”

Dorothy pressed her face against him to smother her laughter.

“Do you regret it?” he asked.

“Ask me when you no longer resemble a bruised turnip.”

“That sounds promising.”

Outside, the river continued rushing toward summer. Inside, Dorothy listened to her husband breathe and knew the worst distance between them had finally closed.

Chapter Nine