And it doesn't get easier. It just gets quieter. And the quiet is its own kind of thing. I know. Clara said.
You lost someone. He said, not a question. He'd worked it out by now. She thought had seen enough of how she moved through loss to recognize someone who had been educated by it. My father, she said four years ago.
Is it true what you said to Lily? He was looking at her directly now. That you ran out of road. I said the world didn't end, Clara said. And it didn't.
That's not the same as saying it got better. No, she agreed. It's not. He exhaled. It was a long breath, exhausted and private.
The kind a person releases when they've stopped performing for a moment. The girls are better, he said. Since you came, Emma sleeps. Lily talks. Rose.
His voice caught briefly. Rose stopped waiting by the window. Clara felt something move through her chest at that. She used to wait at the window every night, 6 months, maybe more, sitting by the front window after supper, watching the road. He looked at the ground.
I didn't know how to make her stop. I tried everything and then it just stopped. Last week, she told me she wasn't waiting anymore because you'd read her a story about a girl who understood that the people who loved you left pieces of themselves behind and you carried them with you and so they were never really gone. Clara was quiet. Did you tell her that?
He asked. Something like it, Clara said. It's what I believe. He looked at her for a long moment. The lamp light in the barn was low and warm, and it made everything look closer than it was.
"I hired you to run the house," he said. "I know. You've done considerably more than that." "I did what was needed," she said simply. "Why?"
He asked. And it was a genuine question. She could hear it. Not suspicious anymore, not guarded, just open, just a man trying to understand something. Clara thought about it carefully.