"Why do you do it?" He asked, not looking at her, the words coming out rough like they'd been dragged up from somewhere he didn't visit often. "All of it, the washing, the cooking, the children. You've got no obligation to any of us, Mrs. Quinn never did. Norah didn't answer right away.
She pinned a shirt to the line, smoothing the wrinkles from it with more care than the task strictly required, giving herself a moment to find words for something she hadn't said aloud to anyone. I watched you from my fence for 4 months, she said finally. Watched Ned get thinner. Watched Ruth stop smiling. Watched you walk your fields like a man already buried himself.
And I told myself every single day it wasn't my place to interfere, that grief needed its season, that a neighbor didn't go marching into another man's sorrow. She turned to face him, and I hated myself. Every single one of those days, Ben told of her. Every day I stood at that fence and did nothing. I hated myself a little more until the morning I saw Ned eating out of the pig trough, and I simply couldn't hate myself over it any longer.
Ben's throat worked. I didn't know about the trough. I didn't know it had gotten that bad. I know you didn't, her voice gentled. That's not a thing I say to shame you.
Grief takes a man's eyes off things sometimes. It's not a character flaw. It's just a fact of it. I only tell you why since you asked. I came because I couldn't stand watching anymore.