Clara kept her hands moving. "Eleanor was your wife," she said carefully. "Yes," he said. A pause. "The kitchen smelled like this on Friday mornings," he said.
His voice was entirely flat. He was not asking for anything. He was just saying it. Placing it somewhere outside himself for a moment. "I make them most mornings," she said.
"I can do a different day." "No," he said. "Don't change anything." She finished the biscuits and put them in the oven and turned around to find him looking at his hands. "She'd been sick for a month before I understood it was serious," he said.
"I thought it was a winter cold. She kept telling me she was fine." A pause. "She was She didn't want me to worry. She was like that.
Protecting everyone, even when she needed protecting herself." Clara sat down across from him, which felt bold, but felt right. "What was she like?" She asked. He looked up.
"You want to know?" He said. There was something in his voice that she thought might be surprise. "Yes," she said simply. He was quiet for a moment.
Then slowly, like someone pulling something out of a place it had been put away for a long time, he began to talk. She listened. She learned that Eleanor Holloway had been small and quick and had laughed at things that surprised people because they were not what you'd expect her to find funny. She had been a better writer than Nate and had never let him forget it. She had liked thunderstorms and hated spiders and had named every one of their horses something literary because she had read every book she could get her hands on and saw no reason horses shouldn't benefit from her education.
She had called Sam her little philosopher because he asked questions before he could properly pronounce the words for the things he was asking about. She had worried about Ethan. Specifically had told Nate once that Ethan felt things more deeply than any of the others and that someone needed to watch out for that. She had known she was dying before she told Nate. He stopped there.
"She didn't tell me," he said, "until she couldn't hide it anymore." "And by then you were angry," Clara said. He looked at her. "Yes," he said. "You're still angry," she said.
A very long silence. "Yes," he said. His voice was absolutely even. "That's all right," she said. He looked at her as though she had said something unexpected.