Chapter Two
Albert Travis did not sleep that night.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Clara Peabody slipping half a biscuit into her pocket with the carefulness of a child who had already learned to think about tomorrow’s hunger.
He saw Tommy stumble in the snow because his little legs were too tired to carry him home.
He heard the question through the cabin wall. Why is our house always cold?
Albert turned onto his back and stared into the darkness above his bed.
His small cabin was quiet around him except for the occasional settling of the stove.
Albert had a roof that did not leak, a blanket thick enough for winter, boots without holes, and three shirts folded at the end of his cot.
He had all those things while Henry’s children were learning to save food for morning.
He and Henry had made promises during the months they worked side by side.
Not formal ones said with hands raised or papers signed, but the kind men made when they trusted one another with their lives.
They had spoken them over coffee gone cold during long shifts, over bruised knuckles and aching backs, over laughter after near accidents that had not yet taught them how quickly a life could end.
“If anything ever happens to me, you’ll look after Dorothy and the children,” Henry had once said, half joking because Grace had not yet been born and Tommy had been barely walking.
Albert had shoved him with one shoulder and said, “Nothing’s going to happen to you, fool. But yes. I would.”
Henry had made the same promise back about any family Albert might have one day.
At the time, it had seemed like the sort of thing men said because danger was close and pretending otherwise made them feel braver.
Now Henry was in the ground, and Albert had done nothing.
Not one single thing that would have honored his friend.
Before the sun was fully up, Albert was dressed and walking toward the mercantile with his coat buttoned tight against the cold.
He passed the path that led to the Peabody cabin and made himself keep moving.
If he went there first, he would have nothing useful in his hands but shame, and Dorothy had lived with enough useless things.
The storekeeper, Mrs. Johnson, looked up from a crate of lamp chimneys when Albert entered. “Morning, Travis. You’re early.”
“Need supplies,” Albert said. He named them without pausing long enough to lose courage. “Flour. Beans. Cornmeal. Salt. Canned milk. Dried meat. Potatoes if you have some sound ones. Sugar. A little tea. Matches. Soap.”
Mrs. Johnson raised her eyebrows as she began setting goods on the counter. “Planning to feed every man at the mill yourself?”
“For me,” Albert said. “I’m tired of eating whatever the cook decides can be boiled beyond recognition.”
That was not much of a lie. He was tired of many things. But he was not about to hand Yeti a piece of Dorothy’s pride and let it be passed from mouth to mouth before noon.
To his knowledge, Mrs. Johnson had always been circumspect, but he wasn’t part of the ladies’ gossip either.
He paid for the supplies, stacked them into two wooden boxes, and carried them through the waking town before anyone could ask too many questions. The boxes were heavy, but not heavy enough. Nothing he carried could weigh as much as the memory of Clara’s biscuit.
Dorothy opened the door to his knock with Grace on her hip and a cautious look in her eyes.
The cabin seemed even smaller in the morning light.
Albert saw at once what he had refused to see for six months.
A patched blanket hung over one wall where the wind must have slipped through the boards.
Clara’s shoes sat near the stove, one sole tied on with string.
Tommy’s coat lay across the chair, the cuffs turned up because there was no more cloth to let down.
Each thing seemed to point a finger at him.
He had eaten warm meals, slept under good blankets, and gone to work every morning telling himself Dorothy was managing.
He had needed that lie, and the cabin was stripping it away board by board.
Once Albert stepped inside with the boxes, there was barely room for him, Dorothy, the children, and the supplies.
“What is all this?” Dorothy asked.
Albert set the boxes near the table. “Supplies.”
“I can see that.” Dorothy’s cheeks colored. “Albert, I can’t accept this. Ella has already brought more than she should. I won’t have the whole town feeding my children while I stand by and do nothing.”
She hated the way her eyes went to the flour before she could stop them. A good mother should have been relieved to see food for her children. Dorothy was relieved, so relieved she could have sat down on the floor and cried, but relief still tasted too much like failure.
“I owed Henry money,” Albert said, because it was the only thing he had thought of that might let her keep her chin up. “I should have seen it paid back sooner.”
Dorothy’s chin lifted in a way that reminded Albert painfully of Henry. “If my husband loaned you money, he would have told me. He never hid hardship from me. Not even when he thought it would frighten me.” Dorothy stared at him. “Henry would never have loaned money without telling me. Not once.”
Albert looked at the floor. He had forgotten how honest Henry had been with her. “Then maybe I owed him for something else.”
“You’re reaching for debt because you know I will not take charity,” Dorothy said, though her voice trembled on the last word.
For friendship. For courage. For letting him work beside a good man and call him brother in every way that mattered. Albert could not say all of that, not with her staring at him as if any answer might turn into pity. “For being Henry,” he said finally.
Dorothy’s eyes softened for half a breath, then pride stiffened her again. “That isn’t a debt.”
“It is if I make it one,” Albert said quietly. “Please, Dorothy. Let me do this much.”
Dorothy wanted to tell him no again. The word sat ready on her tongue because no was safer than yes.
Yes meant owing him something she could not name.
Yes meant letting Henry’s friend see the bare shelves and the thin faces she had tried so hard to hide.
But yes also meant Grace might have milk in her belly and Clara might stop saving biscuits for breakfast. Dorothy looked toward the children and felt the no weaken.
Tommy came to stand beside the wood box and peered into one of Albert’s crates. “Did you bring firewood too?”
Albert turned toward the stove. The wood box beside it held two small pieces and a scattering of bark. The fire was little more than a stubborn glow. Three children lived in that room. A nursing mother lived in that room. Dorothy had been keeping the fire low because she had no other choice.
Albert looked from the wood box to the children.
Clara had drawn close to the stove without thinking, holding her hands out to the weak heat.
Tommy’s nose was red from the cold inside his own home.
Grace fussed against Dorothy’s shoulder and rooted blindly, hungry again though Dorothy’s face was pale with exhaustion.
Every small sign accused him more sharply than David’s question had.
He had not merely stayed away from Dorothy.
He had stayed away from Clara’s cold hands, from Tommy’s empty belly, from Grace’s hungry cry.
He had told himself grief excused him, but grief had not put one stick of wood in that box.
“Not yet,” Albert told Tommy. “But I will.”
A draft touched the back of Albert’s neck. He looked toward the door and saw daylight showing along one side where the frame had shifted. The cold had found that gap and made itself at home.
“Has it been like that long?” he asked.
Dorothy followed his gaze to the crooked door. “Since the first hard freeze,” she said.
“Why did you not tell someone?” Albert asked.
Dorothy’s eyes flashed. “Who did you want me to tell? The men at the mill who looked through me after the funeral because they didn’t know what to say? To you?”
Albert had no answer. He had earned that blow, and it was lighter than he deserved.
Dorothy shifted Grace against her shoulder. “The door swelled in the fall and settled wrong after the first hard freeze. Henry would have fixed it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Dorothy looked away. “Sorry doesn’t mend doors.”
She regretted the sharp words as soon as they left her mouth, but she could not call them back.
Apologies were easy to offer when a man had a full belly and somewhere warm to sleep.
Dorothy had heard enough kind voices after Henry died, enough murmured sorrow and promises to pray.
None of those words had kept the wind from creeping under the door at night.
The words fell between them, simple and heavy.
Albert set his jaw and took off his coat. “No. But hands can.”
He had tools in the small roll he carried to the mill.
Tommy followed him from the door to the table and back again, asking why hinges squeaked, whether nails got cold, and if Albert knew how to fix a sled runner.
He handed Albert a spoon, two buttons, and one of Clara’s stockings before finally bringing the screwdriver Albert had actually asked for.
“You’re a fine helper,” Albert said.
Tommy puffed out his little chest. “Papa said I was good at holding things.”
Albert bent lower over the hinge until he could trust his face. “Your papa was right.”