That was not under the circumstances, the main issue, and they both knew it. It's from Fort Collins, Marin said. Yes, she's offering you $24. Yes. Marin looked at the letter and then at Odora with an expression Odora had not seen on her face before.
Not the closed off weariness she usually carried. Something more exposed than that something younger which made it harder to look at. Are you going to go? Marin said I haven't decided. It's more money.
I know it's Marin looked down at the letter again at the specific figures and misses Pomeroy's direct handwriting. She said private lodging. Yes, you'd be Marin stopped. When she spoke again, her voice had gone careful the way she made it go careful when she was managing herself. You'd be doing actual sewing again.
Odora looked at her. I sew here mending. Marin said and the dresses were she stopped again. That's not the same as a shop. It was not the same as a shop.
Odora had not said otherwise. When do you have to answer? Marin said March 1st. Marin set the letter on the table between them. She set it down with a specific kind of care.
Not casually, not angrily, but with the precision of someone placing something that matters somewhere it can be acknowledged. Then she handed Odora the thread spool. I'll start supper, she said. Marin, I said I'll start supper. Her voice was even too even.
It's fine, Miss Finch. You should do what's best for you. She went to the stove and she picked up the handle of the pot and Odora stood with the thread spool in her hand and looked at the girl straight back and the deliberate set of her shoulders and felt something tighten in her chest that was not something she had been prepared for. The change in Marin was not gradual. It was immediate and it was thorough and it was heartbreaking in the specific way that only a 13-year-old who has been hurt before and has a plan for it can be heartbreaking.
The following morning, Marin was in the kitchen before Odora. Not because she had always been Odora had reclaimed mornings 6 weeks ago and they'd both understood the arrangement, but because she was in the kitchen at 4:30 before anyone, with the oatmeal already started, and Bess's hair ribbon already in her pocket, and her jaw set in the way of someone who has decided something and is not interested in discussing it. Odora came into the kitchen and stopped. "I've got it," Marin said. She did not turn from the stove.