“Mother won’t take it.”
“Then we start without her.”
She asked Jane for warm milk, Clara for clean cloth, and Miles to heat water. The children moved quickly, thrilled to be entrusted with saving something. Nora dipped the cloth in milk and placed it against the foal’s mouth. At first, nothing happened.
Then the animal sucked once.
A cheer rose from the children.
Silas stood behind them, silent.
Nora glanced up and caught his face before he could hide it.
There was grief there.
And hunger.
Not for food.
For the sight of a room full of people trying together.
“Will it live?” Grace whispered.
Nora smiled.
“I think it wants to.”
Silas looked at her then, really looked.
“Wanting isn’t always enough.”
“No,” Nora said, still stroking the foal’s neck. “But it’s a beginning.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
When he turned to leave, Nora followed him outside.
“Mr. Greer.”
He stopped beside his horse.
“Thank you for bringing the foal.”
“It was nothing.”
“No,” she said. “It was not.”
He looked uncomfortable under gratitude.
Nora had already learned that proud people often disliked being seen in the act of kindness. It ruined the story they told about themselves.
“You could stay for supper,” she said.
Silas looked at the chapel, then at the children peering through the window.
“I don’t take meals where I don’t belong.”
Nora’s answer came before she thought better of it.
“Most of us here are learning to belong after the fact.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then touched the brim of his hat.
“Another time, Mrs. Whitcomb.”
He rode away.
But two days later, a wagon arrived.
It carried oats, flour, beans, two sacks of potatoes, a coil of rope, and enough lumber to repair the chapel steps. Silas claimed it was excess from the ranch stores.
Nora looked at the fresh-cut lumber, the clean sacks, the carefully wrapped jar of coffee beans hidden beneath a folded cloth.
“Excess seems very well organized at Greerland,” she said.
Silas gave her a dry look.
“You object to organized excess?”
“I object to poor lying.”
His mouth twitched.
“Then I’ll practice.”
He returned again.
And again.
Sometimes with supplies.
Sometimes with repairs that suddenly needed doing.
Sometimes with no excuse at all, which the children liked best because it meant he stayed for stew.
Nora watched him change in small ways.
He spoke to Miles like a young man instead of a burden. He taught Peter how to sharpen a knife safely. He let the twins help him mend fence and pretended not to enjoy their constant arguing. He brought Ruthie a slate pencil after noticing hers had worn down to a nub.
For Samuel, he carved a little wooden horse.
The child held it to his chest as if it had breath.
“Mine?”