Three sets different paper organized by date. Desa organized the originals back into the leather fold. Gideon made a second leather wrap from scrap hide in the tack room, stitching it with the waxed thread he used for harness repair. And something happened during those hours that had nothing to do with the work exactly. Desa asked him to hold the leather while she stitched a reinforcing seam.
His hands were right there, large and calloused, close to hers. Neither of them commented on it. Amma looked up from her writing and had a small private expression that she put away quickly when she noticed Gideon noticing. He chose not to investigate that expression. He was a man who had lived alone for 7 years.
He understood certain things about himself. The main one being that he was not equipped for the kinds of conversations that required him to say out loud what he was currently feeling. He was good at working, being present, showing up. He was not good at the other thing, whatever the other thing was. He focused on the leather stitching that night late after Alma slept the lamps low.
Desa at the table and Gideon at the at the stove and the silence between them the kind that had been there long enough to become comfortable. Tell me about Nora, she said. Not with the appetite some people brought to other people's grief. With the same direct quality she brought to everything. She came from Boston.
Gideon said, "You said what else? " He looked at the middle distance. She had strong opinions. Not loudly. She didn't need loud.
She'd state what she thought once clearly, then wait. Most of the time she was right. She never once said, "I told you so about any of it. " Which was its own form of devastating. He paused.
She thought the West was more honest than the East. More honest about what things actually cost, about how much effort it took to stay alive. She said she'd rather be somewhere that told the truth about difficulty than somewhere that hid it behind nice wallpaper. Desa almost smiled. Almost.
She would have liked you. Gideon said before he decided to say it. He did not look at Desa. He heard her go still. Then after a moment, "What makes you say that?
" She liked people who meant what they said. A pause. She had no patience for people who performed virtues they didn't have. Desa was quiet. "My mother would have disliked you, " she said.
He looked up. "She was not wrong to distrust men like you, " Desa said. "Men from elsewhere who settle land already lived on. Her distrust was earned. " "Every bit of it, no.