Page 31 of Mail Order Mercy

“Would you come?”

The question startled him. “If you asked me.”

“Even if there were no mill?”

“I can work somewhere else.”

“Even if my mother tells you the proper way to do everything from splitting wood to breathing?”

“I have survived you.”

Dorothy folded the letter, crossed the cabin, and put it into his hand. “Read the last page.”

He did. Her mother had added a final line: If you have found a reason to remain, tell us his name.

Albert looked up.

“I am going to tell her your name,” Dorothy said. “I am going to tell her about Ella and Belle, the mill ledger, the garden, and the cabin that is too small for sorrow to keep its own corner. I will tell her I want to visit one day. But I am not leaving my home.”

Albert set the letter down and drew her into his arms. “Are you certain?”

“I chose Yeti when I had no choice about anything else. I choose it again now. And I choose you.”

Clara looked up from teaching Tommy his letters. “We choose Papa Albert too.”

“Even when he limps?” Dorothy asked.

Tommy considered. “He can still carry Grace.”

“A stirring endorsement,” Albert said.

The garden began as four crooked rows behind the cabin. Dorothy planted potatoes, carrots, turnips, and cabbage. Clara placed each seed as carefully as a coin. Tommy buried three stones, one button, and the wooden horse before anyone stopped him.

“It wanted to grow,” he explained.

Albert cleaned the dirt from Henry’s horse and set it back on the shelf. Then he carved Tommy a small wagon to pull behind his own horse. Clara requested a bird. Grace received a round creature that might become a bear once Albert decided where its ears belonged.

On a bright evening in June, Dorothy stood outside with Grace on her hip and watched Albert help the older children water the rows. His limp was nearly gone. Clara spoke to him with complete confidence. Tommy followed him with complete disorder.

Ella came along the path carrying a basket. “I made too much.”

Dorothy looked inside at a loaf of bread, a jar of preserves, and enough biscuits for two breakfasts. “Do you ever make the correct amount?”

“David says I should stop trying.”

Dorothy took the basket. Months earlier, accepting it had felt like failure. Now she knew help could move in both directions. She handed Ella a packet of mended linens and a jar of salve Belle needed.

“Friends do not keep accounts,” Ella reminded her.

“No,” Dorothy said. “But they do carry baskets both ways.”

Chapter Ten

By midsummer, Yeti smelled of wet earth, sawdust, river water, and things growing faster than anyone expected.

The mill’s new safety rules had become ordinary. Men complained about the Monday inspections with the comfortable irritation of people who intended to follow them. Everett ordered replacement parts before the old ones failed. Dorothy’s ledger filled with dates, names, and repairs.

No page could bring Henry back, but this one might send other husbands home.