"That's what they called you in town." "I know," she said. "They were wrong," he said. He went upstairs. Clara sat alone at the kitchen table for a while with the lamp burning low and the records spread around her and the whole dark weight of what was coming pressing against the window from outside.
She was not afraid. She had run out of road before and found more road on the other side. She would do it again. Outside, the first real snow of winter began to fall on Hayes Ranch, silent and steady, covering the yard that Emma kept swept, and the fence posts that Daniel had finally repaired, and the porch where Rose had stopped waiting by the window. The family was still broken in a dozen places.
But it was beginning slowly and imperfectly, and with great effort to hold. The snow that fell that first night kept falling. By morning, it had covered the yard 3 in deep, and by the time Daniel came in from checking the cattle, his coat was white across the shoulders, and his expression was the particular kind of controlled that meant something was wrong, and he had not yet decided how wrong. Clara set his coffee on the table without being asked. He sat down, wrapped both hands around the cup, stared into it.
Two of the older steers didn't make it through the night, he said. Clara sat down across from him. "How many does that leave you?" She asked. "Enough," he said.
"For now." He looked up. If the cold holds another 2 weeks, we'll lose more. The hay supply is lower than I'd like, and buying more will cost money. I was planning to put towards the bank note.
"How much time do we have before the review?" Clara asked. 18 days. 18 days. She turned the number over in her mind the way you turn a stone looking for what's underneath it.
Then we use the 18 days, she said. He looked at her. You make it sound simple. It isn't simple, she said. But it's possible.
Those are different things. Emma appeared in the kitchen doorway already dressed. Her dark hair pulled back her face, carrying the careful alertness of someone who had heard the number 18 days through the wall and was calculating what it meant. The Larkin family, she said without preamble. They've had trouble with the bank before.
Mr. Larkin told papa 2 years ago that Gerald Hollis changed terms on his mortgage without proper notice. He was angry about it, but he didn't fight it. Daniel looked at his daughter. You remember that conversation? He said, "I remember everything."
Emma said without apology. Clara looked at Emma. "If Larkin experienced the same adjustment, the same pattern in the records, then your father isn't the only one this has happened to. And a pattern means evidence." Emma crossed the kitchen and sat down at the table as though she had been sitting at this table for these conversations her entire life, which Clara understood she essentially had just without anyone acknowledging it.