Page 9 of Mail Order Moose

Lula’s eyes brightened. “And perhaps cards.”

“Lula.”

“Only if you wish. But Sebastian says he plays a fine hand of Euchre, which means he ought to be taught humility by someone other than me.”

Ella had played Euchre. Her mother had allowed cards on winter evenings when the shop was closed and the accounts balanced. Not for gambling. Never for gambling. But for something to do with hands that had already worked too long. Ella had learned the game by watching first, as she learned most things. She knew how the bowers moved, how suits changed shape when trump was named, how a person could smile with confidence and still have nothing worth playing.

“I know the rules,” she said.

Lula put a hand to her heart. “Ella Mae Whitcomb Sanders, you have been keeping treasures from me.”

“Cards are not treasures.”

“They are if Sebastian loses.”

By the time Ella told David of the invitation that evening, she had nearly convinced herself it would not happen. Perhaps the weather would turn. Perhaps Sebastian would be called away. Perhaps David would be too tired from the mill and would say they should stay home by the stove with stew and silence.

David only looked up from mending a split in his glove. “Do you want to go?”

Ella was standing near the stove, where she had been stirring beans that did not require stirring. “Lula asked.”

“That is not the same answer.”

No, it was not. Ella watched the surface of the beans darken where a bubble rose and broke. She did not know if she wanted to go. Wanting a thing did not make it comfortable. Not wanting a thing did not always make it wrong.

“I think I might,” she said finally. “If we do not stay too late.”

David nodded once. “Then we won’t.”

It was such a simple thing to say. Ella had expected perhaps a reassurance that it would be enjoyable or a promise that she ought not be nervous. David offered neither. He did not try to tell her how she should feel before she had arrived. He only made the evening smaller, which made it possible.

Lula and Sebastian’s cabin was warmer than Ella expected and louder before they were fully inside. Not unpleasantly loud. Sebastian’s laugh was large, but it had open spaces in it. Lula’s voice moved over and around his as if she had been born knowing exactly where to place a word so it would land where she intended.

“There you are,” Lula said, coming to the door with a spoon in her hand. “I was about to send Sebastian after you, but he claims he is not yet trained well enough to retrieve quiet women from their own homes.”

Sebastian stood from the table with a grin. “I said I feared Mrs. Sanders would take one look at me coming up the path and bolt into the trees.”

Ella slipped out of her coat, careful to hang it straight on the peg David indicated. “I would not bolt.”

Three faces turned toward her. Ella felt the heat rise at once, but Sebastian’s grin only widened.

“No?” he asked.

“The trees are unfamiliar,” she said before caution could stop her. “I might choose poorly.”

For a heartbeat, the room went quiet. Then Lula laughed so hard she had to put a hand against the doorframe. Sebastian laughed too, not at Ella, exactly, but with such surprised delight that she found she did not mind it as much as she expected. David looked down at the floor, but she saw the corner of his mouth move beneath his beard.

It was not so terrible, then, to be amusing by accident if no one made her repeat herself.

Supper was fish fried crisp at the edges, potatoes browned in a skillet, and beans seasoned by Lula with more courage than sense. Ella noticed the crooked shelf above the stove, the card box on the mantel, the stack of split wood too close to the ash bucket, and the way Sebastian watched Lula every time she reached for something high, as if marriage had given him both joy and constant opportunities to worry.

The talk at the table did not crowd her. That surprised Ella most. Lula and Sebastian spoke enough for three people, perhaps four if one counted Sebastian twice, but their words moved around practical things. The mill. The weather. Whether Lula’s first attempt at frying fish in Alaska should be called supper or evidence. David answered when spoken to and let silence stand when no one needed filling.

Afterward, Lula cleared the plates with the speed of a woman determined to reach the part of the evening she had planned from the beginning. “Cards,” she said.

“I knew there was a purpose to this friendship,” Sebastian said.

“The purpose is to humble you,” Lula said, taking down the box. “Ella knows Euchre.”