Chapter 4 - The Letter From Helena
Marabel read the Helena letter four times before sunset.
Each reading made the decision less simple.
The position was legitimate.
Mrs. Abigail Winter, director of the Women’s House of Helena, remembered Marabel’s application from the previous spring.
Their bookkeeper and residential manager had unexpectedly resigned to care for an ill sister.
Mrs. Winter needed someone immediately.
Marabel’s references had impressed her.
Nine dollars weekly.
A private room.
Meals.
Indoor work through winter.
Responsibility for household accounts, purchasing, meal planning, and the supervision of twelve rooms rented to unmarried working women.
There was even a line that made Marabel’s throat tighten:
Your experience appears broader than the role requires. I believe you may eventually be suited for greater responsibility within the organization.
Greater responsibility.
Not tolerance.
Not charity.
Not “we will see whether you can manage.”
Someone she had never met believed Marabel might be capable of more.
She should have been delighted.
Instead, she sat at the kitchen table long after supper, staring at the letter.
Everett repaired a bridle near the stove.
Neither spoke.
Finally he said, “Nine dollars is good money.”
“Yes.”
“Helena is growing.”
“Yes.”
“Better winters than ranch work.”
“I’m aware.”
“You should consider it.”
Marabel looked up.
“I am considering it.”
Everett nodded.
Then returned to the bridle.
That irritated her.
She could not explain why.
“What do you think?”
His hands stopped.
“About what?”
“The offer.”
“I just told you.”
“No. You described Helena.”
Everett looked at her.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the problem.
She did know.
Some small foolish part of Marabel wanted him to say stay.
Not because he needed a bookkeeper.
Not because the biscuits were better now.
Not because the cattle records were finally organized.
She wanted him to say the house would feel empty again.
But Everett Hollis had too much respect for her to use his loneliness as a chain.
“If you can earn nine dollars,” he said, “you should.”
Marabel’s chest tightened.
“Fine.”
She folded the letter.
Everett heard the hurt.
He did not understand it.
Or perhaps he understood too well.
“Marabel.”
“I said fine.”
“You sound angry.”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re not tired.”
She stood.
“Apparently you know me very well.”
“I know when you’re angry.”
“Congratulations.”
She carried her cup to the sink.
Everett watched.
“You want me to tell you not to go?”
The kitchen became silent.
Marabel’s back remained toward him.
“No.”
It was a lie.
They both knew it.
Everett rose.
“If I ask you to stay, you’ll wonder whether you threw away nine dollars a week because I needed someone to make coffee.”
Marabel turned.
“You think that’s all this is?”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly.
Their eyes met.
Something shifted.
Everett continued more carefully.
“That’s why I won’t ask.”
Marabel swallowed.
He looked toward the letter.
“You walked six miles because people kept deciding what you deserved before you could decide for yourself.”
His voice was quiet.
“I won’t become another person doing that.”
The anger left her.
Unfortunately, something more dangerous replaced it.
Tenderness.
“You make it very difficult to be mad at you.”
“I’ve been told the opposite.”
“By whom?”
“My wife.”
Marabel smiled despite herself.
The mention of Catherine no longer closed the room quite as tightly.
Everett noticed that too.
“When do you have to answer?”
“Within a week.”
“Then take the week.”
Marabel nodded.
That should have ended the conversation.
It did not end what followed.
The next morning felt different.
Every ordinary act suddenly carried the possibility of being the last.
Last Monday coffee.
Last inspection of the chicken coop.
Last time Marabel stood on the back porch watching sunrise over Everett’s land.
She hated that feeling.
So did Everett.
Neither admitted it.
They worked harder instead.
By afternoon Everett had repaired two sections of corral that did not urgently need repairing.
Marabel cleaned a pantry shelf already clean.
At supper, they discussed weather.
It was awful.
On Tuesday, Marabel rode into town alone for supplies.
She mailed a brief letter to Mrs. Winter requesting three additional days to decide.
Then she visited Hadley’s store.
Dileia Marsh was there.
Of course she was.
Dileia watched Marabel order flour, coffee, and lamp oil.
“I hear congratulations are due.”
Marabel turned.
“For what?”
“Helena.”
Marabel’s expression changed.
“How do you know?”
Dileia smiled.
“Small town.”
Too small.
Marabel had told no one except Everett.
Then she remembered the stage driver.
“Apparently you’re leaving,” Dileia continued.
“I haven’t decided.”
“Surely there isn’t much to decide.”
Marabel kept arranging supplies.
“Then it’s fortunate the decision isn’t yours.”
Dileia stepped closer.
“Nine dollars a week is an extraordinary opportunity for someone in your circumstances.”
Marabel heard the implication.
“Someone like me?”
“I said circumstances.”
“You meant something else.”
Dileia lowered her voice.
“You should be practical.”
“I usually am.”
“Everett Hollis had a wife he adored.”
Marabel became still.
Dileia noticed.
“There are people who remember Catherine,” she continued. “People who know what kind of woman she was.”
“And?”
“And I would hate to see you misunderstand kindness.”
Marabel’s hands tightened.
There was cruelty beneath the concern.
A cruelty carefully polished until it resembled advice.
“You think I’m trying to replace her.”
“I think a lonely man and a desperate woman can create stories that are not real.”
Marabel looked at her.
Years earlier, words like that would have sent her running.
Now they only made her tired.
“Mrs. Marsh.”
“Yes?”
“Whatever Everett feels or doesn’t feel is between Everett and himself.”
Dileia’s smile faltered.
“My worth is not.”
Marabel picked up her flour.
“And neither is my future.”
She left.
But the words followed her.
Not because she believed Dileia.
Because part of her feared the same thing.
Everett had loved Catherine.
What exactly was Marabel doing in her kitchen?
Sleeping under her roof?
Putting flowers into her pitcher?
Making Everett laugh where Catherine once had?
That evening she found Everett standing near the graveyard behind the ranch.
Two simple stones rested beneath cottonwoods.
Catherine Hollis.
And a smaller stone.
Their daughter, Rose.
Marabel had not known the child had been named.
She stopped several yards away.
Everett noticed her.
“I can leave.”
“No.”
She approached slowly.
The smaller stone read:
ROSE HOLLIS
BELOVED BEFORE SHE BREATHED
Marabel’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know.”
“Most people don’t.”
Everett stared at the stone.
“Catherine held her for ten minutes.”
Marabel said nothing.
“She was so small.”
His voice roughened.
“She kept apologizing.”
“For what?”
“For not giving me a living child.”
Marabel’s face tightened.
Everett looked at her.
“I told her there was nothing to forgive.”
He swallowed.
“I’m not sure she believed me.”
Marabel stood beside him.
Not touching.
Close enough that he could if he wanted.
Everett did not.
But he did not move away either.
Eventually Marabel said, “Dileia told me people remember Catherine.”
Everett’s eyes hardened.
“What did she say?”
“That I shouldn’t misunderstand kindness.”
He went silent.
“She thinks I’m replacing her.”
Everett turned toward Marabel fully.
“You aren’t.”
The certainty surprised her.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Marabel looked toward Catherine’s grave.
“I’m trying to.”
Everett’s voice softened.
“Catherine was Catherine.”
He paused.
“You are Marabel.”
Simple words.
But they struck someplace deep.
Everett continued.
“There is room in a life for more than one truth.”
Marabel looked at him.
“And more than one love?”
Everett’s breathing changed.
The question had escaped before she could stop it.
Neither moved.
For one suspended moment, the distance between them felt smaller than an inch.
Then Everett looked away.
“I don’t know.”
Marabel nodded.
It hurt.
But it was honest.
And honesty was something she had promised herself she would accept even when it hurt.
That night, she placed the Helena letter beside her bed.
Tomorrow she would decide.
At midnight, wind began pressing against the windows.
By two, rain hammered the roof.
At three, Everett burst from his room.
“Marabel!”
She sat upright.
“What?”
“The north pasture.”
“What happened?”
“Fence went down.”
Lightning flashed through the window.
Everett pulled on his coat.
“Stay here.”
Marabel was already reaching for her boots.
“No.”
“Marabel.”
“There are cattle in that pasture.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“So is losing half your herd.”
Everett stared.
Thunder shook the house.
Marabel tied her hair back.
“You hired a farmhand.”
Then she looked him directly in the eye.
“Try remembering that.”
May you like
Outside, another section of fence collapsed beneath the storm.
And somewhere beyond the darkness, more than two hundred frightened cattle began moving toward the open range.
