Chapter Six
By the time Ella and David reached their cabin, the storm had become something that could be listened to rather than feared. Snow still tapped against the walls and sifted across the path behind them, but the wind no longer struck the cabin in a frightening way.
Ella stood just inside the door while David shook snow from his hat and leaned it carefully on the peg. Her skirts were damp along the hem, her gloves stiff with cold, and her legs ached in the deep, steady way that meant she would feel the walk tomorrow. Still, she did not feel small.
That surprised her more than the cold.
She had expected the attention from the men at the mill and Mrs. Peabody’s gratitude to eat away at her, but it didn’t.
Not like she’d expected. Some of it did.
She could still hear Sebastian saying they should ask Ella first. She could still feel Mrs. Peabody’s chilled fingers around hers.
But the memory did not scrape at her the way being seen usually did.
It settled in her instead, not comfortably, exactly, but in a place where it might become useful.
David shut the door against the last breath of wind and turned toward her. “Sit,” he said.
It was not a command. Ella heard the care in his voice and saw it plainly on his face. She sat at the table because her knees were glad for the order, and David knelt before the stove to bring the fire back.
She watched him work. He did not rush. He never did when rushing would only make the task worse.
He opened the stove door, shifted the embers with the iron, added kindling in the proper place, and waited for the flame to take before adding larger pieces.
It was the sort of patience a person learned from weather, wood, and animals, Ella supposed. Or perhaps it was simply David.
When the kettle began to warm, he poured water into a cup and set it beside her. Not coffee. Water first, because she had been walking in cold air for hours and had forgotten thirst until the cup appeared.
“Thank you,” she said.
David looked as if he wanted to say something more, then chose not to.
*****
The next morning, the storm had passed fully, leaving Yeti buried and bright. Sunlight struck the snow so sharply that Ella had to lower her eyes when she opened the door. The world had been remade in one night, every familiar path softened, every stump hidden, every roof wearing a heavy white cap.
David went to the mill later than usual because the town needed clearing before logs could be thought of.
Ella packed him bread, cold beans, and a strip of dried meat, then hesitated over the last piece.
It was the best portion, not large, but better than the others because it had more meat than gristle and would chew without a fight.
She put it in his cloth before she could decide not to.
It was foolish, perhaps. David was larger than she was and worked harder with his body.
It made sense that he should have the better portion.
That was not the foolish part. The foolish part was the warmth that came from doing it secretly, as if kindness counted differently when it arrived before being requested.
David took the wrapped food and tucked it into his coat pocket. “You have enough for yourself?”
“Yes.”
He studied her for half a breath, not suspiciously, only carefully. “All right.”
He left with his axe over one shoulder and snow crunching beneath his boots. Ella watched until he passed the first bend, then shut the door and turned to the cabin.
There was work enough to keep her from thinking, which meant there was work enough to do.
She swept snowmelt from the threshold, shook out the blanket from David’s pallet, set beans to soak, counted flour, and checked the potatoes for softness.
Then she took David’s second pair of gloves from the peg.
She had seen the holes the night before when he reached for the kettle. Two at the base of the fingers on the right glove, one beginning near the thumb on the left. Small holes. Not worth mentioning, David would have said if he had noticed them. But small holes became large ones.
Ella sat near the window where the light was strongest and threaded her needle.
Leather was harder than cloth, stubborn in a way that required force but not anger.
She worked slowly, pushing the needle through with the thimble, drawing the seam tight, then reinforcing it so the mend would not give way the first time he gripped an axe handle.
As she sewed, she thought of David’s hand at the creek.
Offered, not taken. Waiting, not insisting.
She thought of the chair he had placed at Lula’s table so she could see the room.
She thought of the way he asked questions as if they could be answered later if now was too much.
She thought of how he had called her brave and then let silence protect the word from becoming too large.
Love, in the stories Lula liked, arrived with declarations. Men crossed rooms. Women gasped. Someone spoke from the heart so loudly that everyone nearby knew what was happening before the woman herself did.
Ella could not imagine such a thing without wanting to hide behind the nearest woodpile.
But perhaps love did not always arrive like a shout.
Perhaps sometimes it came like gloves mended before the holes were noticed.
Like the best portion of supper saved without comment.
Like a man who remembered she did not like to sit with her back to the door.
Like patience offered day after day until it stopped feeling like a test and began to feel like a place to rest.
The thought unsettled her so much that she pricked her finger.
She put the finger in her mouth, frowned at the glove, and returned to work.
David noticed that evening, though not at first. Supper had taken longer than Ella meant because she had tried to make the beans taste less like yesterday’s beans, which was difficult when they were, in fact, yesterday’s beans.
She added onion, pepper, and the smallest shaving of dried meat for flavor.
Then, after setting aside his bowl, she scraped the pot carefully so her own would not look so much smaller.
He sat, thanked her, and ate three bites before his spoon slowed.
Ella kept her eyes on her own bowl.
“Ella.”
She looked up because there was no avoiding her name when he said it gently.
David looked from his bowl to hers. “You gave me more.”
“You worked outside.”
“You worked too.”
“Not in snow.”
He seemed to consider arguing. Then he reached for her bowl, took one spoonful from his own, and placed it in hers. Only one. Not enough to undo what she had done. Enough to tell her he had seen it.
Ella did not know whether to be embarrassed or comforted. She chose to eat before he could notice either.
After supper, David reached for his gloves on the peg. His thumb found the new stitching before his eyes did. He stopped, then turned the glove in his hand.
“You mended these.”
“There were holes.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“I know.”
He looked at her then, and there was that quiet warmth again. It had become more difficult to look away from it. “Thank you.”
Ella folded the drying cloth twice, then once more because her hands needed a task. “They will last longer now.”
“So will I, if you keep patching me together before I know I’m coming apart.”
Her hands stilled. It was nearly a joke, but not quite. David did not seem to expect her to answer it as one.
The days after the storm were full of practical things.
Paths had to be cleared, roofs swept, wood brought closer, stores checked again because snow changed how far a person could go for what they lacked.
Ella visited Maggie’s cabin each afternoon when the weather allowed, ledger tucked under her arm.
The women no longer asked whether she was sure before following her figures.
That should have frightened her. Sometimes it did. But not enough to make her stop.
At home, she learned David’s habits the way she learned any system.
He preferred coffee before speaking much in the morning, though he would answer if she asked.
He set his axe against the wall at an angle that looked careless but never fell.
He liked bread with the crust dark. He loosened his right boot first when he came in tired.
He enjoyed cards more than he admitted, though his eyes moved to the small box on the shelf whenever the evening grew quiet enough to hold a game.
On the third evening after the storm, Ella washed the supper dishes and dried her hands.
David was repairing a strap on his pack at the table.
The cabin was warm. The wind outside had quieted.
The lamp made a small circle of light that ended before the corners of the room, leaving them dim but not threatening.
She took the card box from the shelf and set it on the table.
David looked up.
“If you want,” she said.
His smile came slowly. “I do.”
They played two-handed Euchre poorly because the game was not made for two, then altered the rules until it suited them.
Ella kept score on a scrap of paper. David forgot once and laughed at himself when she corrected him.
The laugh was softer than Sebastian’s, with no need to fill the room. It warmed the space just as well.
After the second game, David gathered the cards but did not put them away. “You did this because I like cards.”
Ella traced the edge of the score paper with one finger. “You looked at the box yesterday.”
“Did I?”
“Twice.”
He leaned back, watching her. “You see everything.”
“No.”
“Enough.”
Ella did not know what to do with the gentleness in his voice.
It had been happening more often lately, this trouble of not knowing where to put what he gave her.
Praise could be folded away if a person was careful.
Gratitude could be answered with more work.
But gentleness remained in the room after words ended.
David placed the cards squarely in the box. “I hope you do not think I am waiting for you to become different.”
The words landed so quietly that at first she was not sure she had heard them correctly. She looked up.
David’s hands rested on either side of the card box. He was not smiling now. He was not grave either. Only honest in the way he had been when he told her the first night that she did not have to be afraid of him.
“I know folks expect quiet people to grow louder once they are comfortable,” he said. “As if quiet is something to avoid. I think you’re perfect as you are, Ella.”
Her throat tightened at her name.
He looked down briefly, as if choosing the safest path through words mattered as much as choosing the safest path through snow. “I would rather know you slowly than force you to become someone louder.”
Ella sat very still.
There were things a woman might say to that. Lula would have found five of them, all bold and bright and exactly suited to the moment. Ella had none. Every word in her seemed too small, and every silence seemed too full.
David did not reach for her. He did not ask whether she understood or whether she felt the same or whether she could give him some answer. He only waited, and his waiting did not feel empty. It felt like a chair set in the proper place before she needed it.
Ella looked at his hands beside the card box.
Broad hands, rough from work, careful with cards, careful with kettles, careful with her.
She remembered the first day in the mercantile, how he had not demanded speech from her when everyone else seemed to be listening for it.
She remembered his pallet by the stove, prepared before gratitude could be earned.
She remembered him placing one spoonful into her bowl, not because he did not value what she gave, but because he valued her too.
Cherished was a word she had not trusted before.
It sounded too fine for flour sacks and snowmelt and gloves with mended thumbs.
But perhaps that was why she had misunderstood it.
Perhaps being cherished was not always a man making speeches or bringing flowers that would freeze before morning.
Perhaps it was being allowed to remain herself while someone learned the shape of her silence and did not mistake it for absence.
She reached across the table and straightened the card box, though it was already straight.
“I do not know how to be loud,” she said.
David’s expression softened. “I know.”
“I might never be.”
“Then I will not wait for that.”
There was no reason for the words to make her eyes sting. They were practical, almost. As plain as setting aside flour before the sack emptied or patching gloves before winter found the seams. But they did.
Before she could stop herself, Ella reached out and covered his large hands with one of hers.
It was odd how tiny her hands looked beside his.
She squeezed his hands just once, then released them.
The touch of his bare skin on hers had a surprising reaction.
She felt butterflies in her belly and her hands tingled. Odd.
Ella drew in a careful breath. “I like playing cards with you.”
It was not all she meant. It was not even close. But David received it as if he understood that some truths were easier spoken than others.
“I like playing cards with you too,” he said.
Then, after a moment, he slid the box toward her. “One more hand?”
Ella looked at the cards, then at David. The room was small. The night was cold. Outside, snow lay over every path they would have to break again tomorrow. Nothing about Alaska had become easy.
But David was waiting, not for a confession, not for a different woman, only for her answer.
She nodded.
He dealt the cards slowly, giving her time to gather herself between each one. Ella watched them fall into place. One, two, three, four, five. A hand imperfect, but playable.
It seemed to her, as she lifted the cards and arranged them by suit, that perhaps being cherished might feel something like this. Not sudden. Not loud. Not simple.
But possible.