Page 18 of Mail Order Mercy

Sometime deep in the night, Tommy woke crying from a dream and stumbled straight onto Albert’s bedroll. Albert lifted one edge of the blanket without fully opening his eyes, and Tommy crawled beneath it as if he had always belonged there.

Not long after, Clara followed, whispering that Tommy had stolen most of the warmth. Albert shifted, made room, and ended up pinned beneath one small boy, one solemn girl, and a blanket that had lost all sense of fairness.

Dorothy watched from behind the curtain with Grace asleep beside her. Albert’s arm was crooked protectively around Tommy, and Clara’s hand rested on his sleeve. The cabin was still too small. The future was still uncertain. There were truths about Henry’s accident she still needed to ask, and truths in Albert’s heart he had not yet found courage to speak.

But in the orange glow from the stove, Albert already looked as though he belonged there.

Chapter Six

Albert woke before dawn with one small foot pressed into his ribs and another resting across his thigh.

For a moment, he did not know where he was. Then Tommy sighed against his shoulder, Clara shifted at his side, and the stove popped softly in the dark. Albert stared up at the low ceiling of Dorothy’s cabin and remembered. He was married. He lived here now. The thought was too large for the floor beneath him and the two children pinning him in place.

He eased himself free inch by inch, holding his breath when Clara frowned in her sleep and when Tommy muttered something about swimming boots. By the time Albert stood, his back ached, his arm had gone numb, and his heart felt oddly full.

He meant to make breakfast quietly. That was the first mistake. The second was believing biscuits were simple because Dorothy made them look that way. By the time gray light touched the window, Albert had flour on his sleeves, dough stuck to his fingers, and a pan of hard little lumps that looked more useful for repairing the roof than feeding children.

Tommy woke first and came to the table rubbing one eye. “Are those rocks?”

“Biscuits,” Albert said with dignity.

Tommy took one, bit down, and chewed with heroic determination. “They crunch good.”

Clara sat up and peered at the pan. “Mama’s biscuits do not sound when you bite them.”

Albert considered the pan. “That is because your mama makes eating biscuits. I appear to have made warning biscuits.”

“What do they warn?” Tommy asked, taking another brave bite.

“Mostly teeth,” Albert said.

Dorothy laughed softly from behind the curtain, and Albert decided any biscuit that brought that sound into the morning could not be counted a complete failure.

Dorothy lay still behind the curtain longer than she needed to, listening to Albert move awkwardly through her kitchen as if every spoon and pan held a question he was afraid to ask too loudly. Part of her wanted to rise and rescue the biscuits before they became weapons. Another part wanted to let him try. This was his home now too, and she could not keep every task clutched in her own hands simply because she knew how to do it best.

Later that morning, Albert took Dorothy and the children to gather the rest of his belongings from his old cabin. Clara held Dorothy’s hand, Tommy marched ahead with a stick, and Grace slept against Dorothy’s shoulder, bundled deep against the cold.

Albert’s cabin stood farther from the center of Yeti, set back near a stand of black spruce. It was neat because there had been so little in it to disturb. A cot, a trunk, a shelf, a stove, and a table barely large enough for one man’s plate.

Dorothy looked around. “Should we live here instead?”

Albert shook his head. “It is smaller than yours, farther from Ella and Belle, and too quiet for children.”

“Too quiet?” Dorothy asked.

Tommy struck the wall with his stick, and dust shook loose from a corner. Albert looked at him. “For example, this cabin would not survive that boy for a week.”

“My children have survived smaller places than this,” Dorothy said, though she still looked uncertain.

“They should not have to survive if we can help them live better,” Albert said. “Your cabin is close to the women who love you. That matters more than my convenience.”

Dorothy tried to smile, but the thought behind his answer touched her. He would not uproot the children merely to make his own life easier. He was fitting himself into their home instead of forcing them into his.

Making room for Albert proved harder than marrying him.

His shirts needed a place. His tools needed a place. His shaving things, spare socks, extra bootlaces, and the small box of letters from his family needed places as well. The cabin had survived scarcity by keeping little because there had been little to keep. Now abundance of any sort felt like a puzzle.

Albert solved part of the trouble by building upward. He set boards along one wall and turned them into shelves sturdy enough to hold his shirts, Dorothy’s sewing basket, Clara’s treasured bits of ribbon, and Tommy’s collection of stones that were apparently too important to leave outside where stones belonged.