Page 21 of Mail Order Mercy

“You laugh more now,” Ella said quietly to Dorothy as she passed her a bowl.

Dorothy nearly dropped the spoon. “I do not.”

Ella’s smile was gentle. “Then your face is practicing without your permission.”

Dorothy glanced toward Albert, who was pretending great concentration over cutting Tommy’s bread into pieces small enough for the boy to stab with a fork. “It is only noisy in here,” she said.

“Noise can be good,” Ella said. “Especially after too much quiet.”

There was no graceful way to serve four adults and three children in a one-room cabin. Plates passed from hand to hand. Tommy crawled beneath the table twice. Grace dropped her spoon and cried because she had. Albert reached for the spoon at the same time Dorothy did, and their shoulders brushed. It was nothing. It was everything.

Ella noticed. She noticed because Ella noticed everything worth noticing. She said nothing, but later, when Dorothy and Albert moved together to clear plates—Albert taking Grace without being asked so Dorothy could stack bowls, Dorothy shifting aside before Albert bumped her elbow—they looked less like strangers joined by necessity and more like two people learning a dance in a room too small for music.

Outside, while Ella helped Dorothy rinse dishes, David stood with Albert near the woodpile.

“You do not look like a man suffering through an unwanted marriage,” David said.

Albert glanced toward the cabin window, where lamplight caught Dorothy’s profile as she bent over the basin. “No,” he said quietly. “I do not suppose I am.”

David folded his arms against the cold. “Then make certain she knows that before she convinces herself otherwise.”

Albert did not answer. He was beginning to understand that silence could be as misleading as a lie when a heart was already frightened.

After Ella and David left, the cabin seemed both quieter and more intimate. The children fell asleep quickly, worn out by visitors, full supper, and the great labor of rearranging every adult’s peace. Clara curled near Tommy on the pallet, one hand resting on Henry’s carved horse where Albert had set it on the low shelf. Grace fussed while Dorothy finished wiping the table.

“I can take her,” Albert said.

“You have already done enough tonight,” Dorothy said.

Albert held out his hands. “Then let me do one smaller thing badly or one useful thing well. Grace and I will both hope it is the second.”

Dorothy hesitated only a moment before passing Grace to him. The baby settled against his chest with a tired sigh, one small hand gripping his shirt. Albert held her as if she were not fragile exactly, but precious in a way that demanded both strength and care.

Dorothy watched him while she folded the cloth and set the last bowl aside. She had once thought a man holding a baby was a useful sight. Henry had made it beautiful. Albert made it something different—steady, patient, and unexpectedly tender. He didn’t ask Henry’s memory to move aside. It simply stood near it.

When Grace finally slept, Albert crossed the room and placed her carefully in Dorothy’s arms. Their hands met beneath the baby’s warm weight and lingered longer than necessary.

For one breath, Albert forgot the curtain, the bedroll, the promise he had made not to demand anything from Dorothy. He saw the softness in her eyes and the curve of her hand beneath his, and the want to kiss her rose so suddenly that it stole his good sense. Then caution came back. He had promised safety. He had promised not to press. Wanting did not give him the right to take.

He stepped back. “Good night, Dorothy.”

“Albert?” Dorothy said before she could lose courage.

He stopped at once. “Yes?”

She had no idea what she meant to ask. Why did you step away? Do you not want me? Are you being kind, or are you sorry you married me? None of those words would come. “Thank you for holding Grace,” she said instead.

Albert’s face softened. “You never have to thank me for holding one of the children.”

Dorothy shifted Grace higher in her arms. “Still, I do thank you. She is not your burden.”

Albert’s eyes lifted to hers. “No child in this cabin is a burden to me.”

The words were simple, but they landed in Dorothy like a hand laid carefully over a bruise. “You say things like that as if they cost you nothing.”

“They cost me truth,” Albert said. “That is all.”

Dorothy looked at him then, and the space between them changed. It was still only a few inches, filled with Grace’s sleeping weight and the faint smell of soap and woodsmoke, but it felt suddenly like a place both of them knew existed and neither knew how to cross.