Nothing so large as that, but to shift, just barely. Just enough to know that something was still alive in there. That was all. That was enough for now. The morning after Lily's fall, Ethan came downstairs before dawn.
Clara was already in the kitchen. She had coffee on the stove and biscuits in the oven, and she was standing at the window with a cup in both hands, looking out at the dark ridge to the east. She heard him on the stairs that particular heavy tread, the slight pause on the third step from the bottom that always creaked, and she poured a second cup, and set it on the table without turning around. He came in, stopped, looked at the cup, sat down. I didn't say good morning.
She didn't say it either. Some mornings didn't call for it, and both of them seemed to understand that. He wrapped his hands around the cup and stared at it. "She's still sleeping," he finally asked. I checked her an hour ago.
"Sleeping fine. Colors good." Clara turned from the window. "The bruising on her ribs will hurt for a few days. She shouldn't climb anything until the headache passes."
He nodded. His jaw worked once like he was chewing on something he wasn't sure he wanted to swallow. She talked last night, he said. More than she's talked in months. Clara said nothing.
She asked me if you were going to be there in the morning. He paused. I didn't know what to tell her. You could have told her yes, Clara said. Because I was going to be.
He looked up at her then. Really looked the way he hadn't let himself look since the platform in town. I misjudged you, he said. The words came out flat and plain, the way honest things sometimes do. No decoration, no softening, just the fact of it laid on the table between them like a card he'd been holding too long.
Clara sat down across from him. You did, she said. But you weren't the first, and I reckon you won't be the last. "That doesn't make it right." "No," she agreed.
"It doesn't." They sat with that for a moment. I'm not. He stopped, started again. I'm not good at this at people.
At He moved his hand in a way that meant everything and nothing. My wife was the one who knew how to talk to people. I just knew how to work. Working is something, Clara said. It ain't enough, he said.
Not for raising children. "I know that." I've known it for 2 years, and I don't know what to do about it. The oven popped. Clara got up and pulled the biscuits out and set them on the rack.