"Engineering principles." "Simple mechanics. The kind of thing that gives a boy somewhere to put the energy." He was quiet for a moment. "I'll think about it," he said.
3 days later, the book appeared on the kitchen table with Luke's name written on the front page in Nate's careful handwriting. Luke spent the rest of the week reading it at the table and asking questions about pulleys that Clara answered as best she could and referred to James for the rest. Ethan was the one she thought about most. He was 14 and he was quiet in a way that was different from his father's quiet. Nate was quiet because he had decided that most things didn't require words.
Ethan was quiet in the way of someone who has decided that his words have weight he can't always control and so he keeps them mostly inside. He ate. He worked. He came to meals and completed his chores and was by all external measures a perfectly functioning boy. But he didn't draw.
Which she knew because she had found a sketchbook tucked under his mattress when she was changing his bedding. Placed exactly as found it without mentioning it and the drawings inside were detailed and careful and suggested a boy who had once loved making things visible and had stopped. She found out why eventually. She was in the kitchen when she heard Mabel and Ethan talking in the hallway, not arguing, just talking. And she moved quietly so she wouldn't interrupt before she realized she was already hearing it.
"It's not your fault," Mabel was saying. "I was supposed to ride for Doc Wallace," Ethan said. His voice was low and careful. "I knew Ma was sick. I knew it was bad and I didn't go because I thought I thought she just needed to sleep."
"Ethan, I should have gone," he said. "I was the one who was old enough. James was with Pa at the south pasture. I was there. I was there and I didn't go.
A silence. She wasn't going to make it even if you had, Mabel said quietly. Dr. Willis told Pa that. He told Pa, Ethan said.
After, Clara stood very still in the kitchen and did not move and did not breathe and did not let anything rattle against anything else on the shelf. That night, she made a point of finding Ethan in the barn while he was cleaning tack work he did alone, which she understood now was probably by design and she sat down on a hay bale nearby and said nothing for a while. Just being present without demanding anything from it. After a while he said, you need something? No, she said.
I'm just resting. He looked at her sideways. The house is more comfortable, he said. I know, she said. I like it out here though, quiet.
He went back to the tack. After a few more minutes, he said, you heard us. Me and Mabel. She didn't insult him by pretending otherwise. Yes, she said.