"It's all right to be angry," she said. People say it isn't, but it is. She should have told you sooner. You deserve to know sooner. That's a real thing to be angry about."
Something passed across his face, brief, tightly controlled, but there. "The children don't know that part," he said. "I understand," she said. "I'd appreciate I understand," she said again, firmly enough that he could hear she meant it. The biscuits were ready.
She got up and took them out and put them on the counter and he stood and put his hat back on. "Thank you," he said. It was slightly unclear what he was thanking her for. "Of course," she said. He went back outside.
She stood in the kitchen alone for a moment. She thought about Robert, about the year after his death, when she had been so angry she had known what to do with herself. Angry at the land for being too hard and the winter for being too long and Robert for leaving her, which was irrational and real in equal measure. She had not had anyone to say that to. She had gone to church and smiled and said she was managing and gone home and sat with it alone.
She thought about the look on Nate Holloway's face when she told him it was all right to be angry. Like someone who had been waiting 3 years for a permission. She went and planted her herb garden that afternoon, the seeds she had carried from Billings, pushing them into the earth along the south side of the house where they'd get enough sun. Sam found her there and crouched down and asked 11 precise questions about what each plant was and why she was planting them and whether he could help. She told him yes and gave him the job of patting the soil down over the seeds she placed, which he performed with complete seriousness and obvious pride.
"There," he said when the last seed was covered. He sat back on his heels. "Now they'll grow." "They will," she said. He looked up at her.
"Clara," he said. "Yes, Sam." "I'm glad you came," he said with the absolute directness of 6-year-olds who have not yet learned to hedge their meaning. Even Mabel's not as mad as she was when you first got here. She's just medium mad now."
Clara kept her face very careful. "I appreciate you telling me that," she said. "You're welcome," he said. He stood and brushed dirt off his knees with great dignity. "I'm going to go check on the horses."
He walked off toward the barn. She looked at the turned earth where the seeds were, the herbs she'd carried 300 miles in her bag because she could not leave them behind and thought that sometimes the things you carried just for yourself turn out to be the first things you give away. Mabel found her there 20 minutes later. "Sam told me you let him help plant," she said. There was no accusation in it, just information.
"He asked," Clara said. "He worked hard." A pause. Mabel crouched beside her, not quite sitting, looking at the turned earth. "Ma had a garden," she said.