And he listened to Tilda explain the distinction between the revolution of the Earth and its rotation, which he had apparently found in a science book. Dileia Frost had loaned her, and he watched Bess argue with Tilda about whether the moon had anything to do with it, and he let it happen around him because the alternative was sitting in the barn with Harland going over numbers that didn't improve no matter how many times they went over them. Odora saw it. He knew she did. She watched him the way she watched everything, without making it visible, without comment, just tracking.
One evening, when the girls had gone to bed, she put a plate of food in front of him that he hadn't asked for and that he hadn't noticed he needed, and he looked at it and then at her, and she said only, "You didn't finish supper." I wasn't hungry then. You are now, he ate. She went back to her mending. The kitchen was warm and the wind was hitting the north wall of the house with a steady weight and the sound of the treadle machine behind the locked door was no nothing.
The locked door was just wood. He ate and didn't say anything and she mended and didn't say anything and it was for reasons he couldn't have explained and didn't try to enough. He sent a letter to the bank in the third week of January. He asked whether the note could be restructured. He wrote the letter four times before he was satisfied with the version he sent, or rather the version he was willing to live with, which was not the same thing.
He told Odora he'd sent it. He wasn't sure why. She was in the larder taking inventory when he said it, and she stopped and turned to look at him. "What did you ask for?" She said.
"60 days after spring sales. Do you think they'll give it? I think the man at the bank knows that if this ranch folds, he has 50 acres of mortgaged land and a cattle operation with no operator, which is worth considerably less than a going concern. He paused. I think his best option is to give me 60 days and hope we sell well in spring.
Odora turned this over in a way that told him she was doing the actual math and not just receiving the conclusion. What do you need to see from spring sales to cover it? He told her the number. She did not change her expression. She just nodded once.
The way someone nods when the number is hard but not impossible, which was more useful to him than pity would have been. Then the cattle that are left need to winter well, she said. Yes. What do they need? Better feed than I can afford and better weather than Wyoming is offering.
What can you actually give them? He looked at her. She wasn't being dismissive of the problem. She was doing what she always did, finding the edge between what was true and what was workable and standing in that gap with her sleeves pushed up. Better shelter and more hands, he said.