She looked at the rise. Imagined it. The structure that didn't exist yet, the work that hadn't been done, the life that would happen in rooms that were currently sky. It'll take time, she said. Yes.
And money? Yes. And more work than you're probably estimating right now. He looked at her sideways. Are you trying to talk me out of it?
No, she said. I'm going in with clear eyes. He was quiet for a moment. The wind came off the eastern flats and moved through the dry grass around them. And she pulled her coat tighter.
And he didn't move closer, but she was aware of him beside her with the awareness she'd stopped trying to manage. It was just a fact now, like the slope or the creek or the pale winter sky. He was there. She was glad he was there. Clara, he said.
She looked at him. I was not looking at the rise anymore. He was looking at her with an expression she recognized now. The full open thing, no almost about it. He reached into his coat pocket.
Not the inside pocket with the deed, the outside one. He brought out something small, and when she saw what it was, she understood that he had planned this, had planned it for this specific place on this specific day, with a deliberateness that was entirely him. It was a ring, simple, a thin band with a small dark stone she didn't immediately know. Not expensive, not a statement, just a ring chosen carefully by a man who chose things carefully. "I don't have a speech," he said.
I thought about one, and it came out sounding like someone else. So, I'll just say what's true. He held the ring between his fingers, looking at her. I came to Silver Creek with nothing settled. I didn't plan to stay.
I didn't plan any of this. A pause. And this is the first place I've stood in a very long time and felt like the ground was solid under my feet. That's you. That's what you did.