He had apparently brought the sketchbook to supper, which said something about how the evening had been expected to go, and opened it to a page and slid it across the table. She looked at it. It was her at the kitchen table at night, the lamp burning low, paper spread around her, one hand holding a pen, and the other pressed flat on the ledger. Her head was bent, and her shoulders were focused, and the expression on her face was something she didn't have a word for it immediately. Purposeful, yes.
Concentrated, yes. But also something else. Something that looked, she thought, like someone who had found exactly the thing they were meant to be doing. She looked at it for a long time. "You're very talented," she said.
"It's just observation," he said. "Observation is the whole thing," she said. "Don't minimize it." He looked at her, and for the first time she saw something in his face that was not guarded or careful or controlled. Just a boy who had been told that what he did was worth doing.
Just that. Just the simple relief of it. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you," she said, and meant it differently. After supper, Mabel came to stand beside her at the sink.
"He's going to ask you to marry him," Mabel said. Clara went very still. "Pa," Mabel said, "he's going to ask you. I know him. I've watched him for 16 years.
He has There's a way he looks at things he's decided about. He has that look." Clara kept her hands in the wash water. "Mabel, I'm not telling you to warn you off," Mabel said. "Quickly.
Firmly. I'm telling you cuz I want you to know that" She stopped. Her voice had gone slightly rough at the edges, which was the only external sign she ever permitted herself. "I want you to know that I think you should say yes. If he asks, I think you should say yes."
Clara turned to look at her. Mabel was looking at the window. Her jaw was set, and her hands were still, and she had the expression of someone who has just done something that cost her considerably. "He's been alone too long," Mabel said, and we stopped. I have tried very hard to be what we needed.
I'm not I know I'm not always easy. I know I made it hard for you at the beginning. I know I was. "You were protecting your family," Clara said. "I was protecting myself," Mabel said very quietly.