At Amma, there was a world of communication between them that he had no access to and never would. Not because they excluded him, but because some things were built between two people over tw 26 years of being each other's closest witness, and no amount of goodwill from outside twice could fully enter it. He handed Desa the leather fold. The fourth copy then said, and he hadn't planned to say it, it arrived fully formed without his permission, which was happening more often lately. Come back.
Desa looked at him. Just that, just those two words, his eyes and hers, and the winter light from the east window and the copper kettle behind him on its hook. Yes, she said, and she went. The waiting was its own particular difficulty. Gideon was not good at waiting.
He was good at doing physical work, visible results. The honest satisfaction of a life organized around practical outcomes. Waiting was not practical. Waiting was just time passing. While you tried not to think about every way, the thing you were waiting on could go wrong.
He split wood, more than they needed, considerably more. Amma watched him from the cabin steps, wrapped in Norah's quilt, her legs drawn up, her dark eyes tracking him with the calm, observational patience of a woman who had decided he was more interesting than she'd initially accounted for. You do that when you can't fix something, she said. He split another log. The wood doesn't need fixing, he said.
No, but your hands need to be useful. He set the next log on the block. Looked at her. She'll be fine. Amma said she knows that land.
She's run it in worse. I know. But knowing and feeling are different things. He split the log. The pieces fell clean.
Yes, he said. Hama was quiet a moment then. Gideon. Yes, she trusts you. He said another log adjusted his grip.
She doesn't show trust the way most people do. Amma said she shows it by doing the thing instead of saying the thing. A pause. She stayed at the window when apprentice came. She didn't go to the root cellar until she'd read his horse, his posture, the way he tied the res.
She was making sure she'd have everything she needed if something went wrong and she had to come out and help you. He hadn't known that he'd thought she'd gone immediately. He put the axe down, stood there in the cold with his hands on the handle and the specific feeling of learning something about a person that rearranges things. She was covering you. Amma said that's what she does when she trusts someone.
He picked up the axe again. How long did it take her to trust you? He said thought about it. We've been sisters since before we could think, she said. She's never not trusted me.