He looked at Harland steadily. If she stays because those girls need her, someday she'll resent them. If she stays because I need her, he stopped. She'll resent me faster. Harland was quiet for a long moment.
Then he said, "That's a hard piece of thinking for a man who can't afford to let her go." "Yes," Garrick said. "It is." He finished checking the fence boards and went back to the house. That evening after supper, when Marin had taken Bess upstairs and Tilda was doing figures at the kitchen table, Garrick found Odora in the front room, sitting at the far chair with her mending in her lap and her mind somewhere else, which was apparent from the fact that she hadn't made a stitch in the several minutes he'd been watching from the doorway.
He came in and sat down in his chair by the fire. Tilda's voice drifted through from the kitchen, working through a calculation out loud. The fire snapped. I know about the offer, Garrick said. Odora looked up.
She didn't ask how. I was going to tell you when when I decided. He looked at the fire. He was thinking about what he'd said to Harland and trying to hold to it because it had seemed like the right thing in the barn, and he wanted to make sure it still seemed right here in the same room as her, with the house warm and the fire going and his daughter's voices overhead. It's a good offer, he said.
Odora said nothing. Better than what I pay you. He said it straight. Better lodging. Better work probably.
The chance of a partnership in a going business. Yes, she said quietly. I can't match any of that, he said. You know what the ledger looks like. I do.
Then you know I'm not in a position to make you a competing offer. Odora set her mending down and looked at him directly. There was something on her face he hadn't seen aimed at him before, and an attention that was different from the watchful, professional attention she carried as a matter of habit. This was closer, more particular. Is that what you're doing?
She said, making a competing offer. No, he said, I'm telling you I won't. If Fort Collins is what you want, if it's the life you want, the work you want, then you should go. He looked at her steadily. I won't ask you not to, and I won't let my daughters ask you not to.