She was still learning the loom, and it shows the tension's uneven in places. Some rows not quite straight. She knew that. She called it her honest quilt. said it was honest because you could see where she was still figuring things out.
He stopped. Desa waited. Amma should have it. He said the cold gets into those ribs at night. I can hear her adjusting, trying to find a position that doesn't pull.
She needs more weight, a pause, not a blanket. A proper quilt, Desa went completely still. It's still yours, she said carefully. If you give it, it doesn't stop being what it was. I know that.
You're sure? He turned from the fire, looked at her. I haven't been sure of much in seven years, he said. But I'm sure of that. He went to the bed, lifted the quilt.
The weight of it in his hands was different than he expected. Not heavier, something else, not lighter, just different, like it had changed what it was without him being present for the change. He carried it to the sleeping area. Amma was awake. often was at this hour managing.
She looked up when he came in. He held out the quilt. She took it carefully, spread it over herself. Her hands moved across the surface the way her hands always moved across things. Reading the uneven tension, the places where Norah had been still figuring things out.
She was still learning, Ama said quietly. When she made this, yes, but she finished it. She always finished what she started. Amma looked at him in the low lamp light. Her face was softer than it was in daylight.
The constant alertness eased back. She sounds like someone who understood what mattered. She did better than me. Most of the time he left the lamp burning low. Went back to the main room.
Desa was still at the table. She looked at him when he came back. Just looked. He sat down and the cabin held them. The three of them.
The quilt doing its work in the other room, the fire doing its work here, the copper kettle on its hook exactly where Norah had left it. In a silence that was the closest thing to peace that Gideon Marsh had allowed himself in a very long time, Aldis Apprentice arrived on the eighth day, midm morning, clear sky, brutal cold. Gideon saw him from the barn, a single rider coming from the south, turning onto the homestead track, moving at the pace of someone who expected to be welcomed. Gideon watched him come, then went inside. Company, he said, two words.
Desa was at the east window in three steps. Looked, turned, apprentice. Yes. Something moved across her face fast, gone before he could name it. Root seller, Desa said.