James said from across the table with the dignity appropriate to a 17-year-old who has just lost a bet I said October. It's still September Daniel said. It is September 30th James said. That's still September Daniel said. That's technically.
Boys Nate said they stopped. Sam slid off his chair crossed the kitchen and stood in front of Clara with his hands clasped behind his back and his brown eyes very serious. I decided you were mine in June he said. I just want you to know I was first. I know she said I remember.
He nodded satisfied and climbed back onto his chair. Ethan said nothing for a moment. Then he looked at Clara across the table and said good with such quiet complete finality that it landed heavier than anything the other boys had said. Luke immediately asked if this meant she would stay forever, and when she said yes, he said good because I need someone to explain chapter seven and produced his engineering book from somewhere about his person. Which meant he had brought it to breakfast, which was not surprising.
Mabel was last. She had been standing at the counter throughout this not apart, not excluded, just slightly back in the way of someone who needs a moment to make sure of themselves before they move. Clara looked at her across the kitchen. Mabel crossed to her and put her arms around her quickly, firmly, without the rigidity of the first time, without hesitation, and then stepped back, straightened her apron and said, "Breakfast is getting cold." And went back to the stove.
Nate caught Clara's eye over the heads of his children. She thought she had never in her life seen a man look like that. Like something that had been braced against it for so long had finally been allowed to simply stand upright. She thought that expression was worth every mile of that train ride. The wedding was set for November, which gave them six weeks, and six weeks in a household with seven children in a Montana autumn pressing in from all sides was not very long at all.
Clara did not want anything large. She told Nate this directly, told him that what she wanted was the people in this house, Martha Greer and Helen Pruitt, Reverend Marsh performing the ceremony because despite his wife's reservations, he was a decent man who had apologized to Nate quietly and sincerely for the intrusion into his household. That was enough, more than enough. Nate said, "Whatever you want." She said, "That's what I want."
He said, "Then that's what it'll be." He said it with the ease of a man who has learned, over the course of several months, that the wisest thing he can generally do is agree with her, which she found both endearing and slightly amusing. The six weeks were full. Mabel, who had decided that if this was happening, it was going to be done properly, took charge of the domestic preparations with the organized efficiency that was her native language, and which Clara now recognized as love expressed in the only way Mabel had been allowed to practice for 3 years. She made lists.
She consulted with Martha Greer, who arrived one Wednesday with fabric samples and strong opinions, and a laugh that filled the kitchen. Clara sat with Mabel over those lists more than once, and they worked together in the way they had learned to work, Clara offering, Mabel directing, both of them moving around each other's competence without friction, without the territorial wariness of the early weeks. It was during one of those sessions that Mabel said, without looking up from her list, "I've been thinking about what you said." "About studying." Clara kept her hands on the fabric she was folding.
"Helen Pruitt came to see me," Mabel said, "the school teacher." "She said there's a teaching certificate program in Billings." She paused. "She said I'm more than qualified to sit the entrance examination." "You are," Clara said.