Page 152 of Eleanor’s Earrings

“No. Grief has excellent endurance.”

She smiled sadly. “It does.”

“I never said goodbye to her.”

“You can now.”

Nathaniel looked into the fire. He remembered Abigail laughing too loudly, placing bread in the oven and forgetting it, playing the piano with more enthusiasm than skill.

“Goodbye,” he whispered.

Eleanor rested her head against his uninjured shoulder.

They sat quietly until the fire burned low.

“Tell me about your father,” Nathaniel said.

Eleanor was silent for a long time. “He was certain of everything. Even when he was wrong.”

“A terrible quality.”

“You would recognize it.”

“Immediately.”

She smiled. “After Mother died, he made plans. Every season, there was something new to prepare. He believed Clover Creek would keep us together and give each of us a future.”

“And you?”

“I turned his plan into a command. Following it was easier than grieving him.” She removed the leather pouch and unfolded the pages. “If we failed to meet the distance he noted, I felt I had failed him. If I changed a load, route, or decision, I felt I was erasing him.”

Nathaniel looked at the neat figures. “A plan cannot love you back.”

“No.”

“It also cannot be hurt when you change it.”

Eleanor took out a pencil. Together, they revised the schedule. Fixed daily mileages became ranges. They added rest days after major crossings, bad weather, injury, or illness. They left room for repairs and unexpected losses.

At the bottom, Eleanor wrote: The people making the journey must decide what the journey requires.

She read it twice.

“Father would argue,” she said.

“Would he win?”

“No.”

Nathaniel smiled. “Then the plan is yours now.”

Eleanor folded the pages and returned them to the pouch. She looked lighter.

“When I ask you to marry me,” Nathaniel said, “I will ask Eleanor. Not the keeper of eight women, two wagons, or a dead man's instructions.”

“Eight women?”

“You are among them.”