Chapter Eight
Ella decided to invite people to supper on a morning when the cold seemed to be the only thing anyone could think about.
It was not the first cold of the season. That had already come with wind and snow, and the storm that left the town half-buried. This was different. The early panic had passed, and in its place came the steady understanding that winter would be here for a good long time.
People had begun to move less easily from cabin to cabin. Visits were shorter. Errands were planned by daylight and temperature. Conversation at the cold houses had turned from what should be stored to what might make life better as they finished out winter.
Lula had said that someone ought to host an evening before they all forgot how to sit in a room for pleasure rather than planning.
“You have the neatest cabin,” Lula had added, looking directly at Ella in a way that was not subtle enough to be called anything else.
Ella had thought of saying no. She had several good reasons.
The cabin was small. The stove was temperamental.
David owned only two chairs, and one had a leg that needed watching.
She did not know how to make people laugh.
She did not know how to keep conversation moving if it stalled.
She did not know where everyone would put their wet boots.
But she knew how to count bowls. She knew how to make stew stretch without tasting thin.
She knew which corner of the cabin was farthest from the door and least likely to catch a draft.
She knew David liked cards and Sebastian liked noise and Belle liked a chair with good light if she brought mending.
She knew Maggie would need somewhere to set the baby if she came.
So, she said, “Saturday evening, if the weather holds.”
Lula clapped her hands together as if Ella had announced a wedding. “There. Settled.”
*****
Ella made a list that afternoon, then another list beneath it when the first one became too crowded to trust.
Stew, because stew forgave timing. Bread, because people expected bread and because David had said once that the smell of it made a cabin feel inhabited.
It made sense to have Myrtle bring the bread.
Coffee for the men. Tea for anyone who preferred it.
A little dried apple warmed with sugar. Cards on the table after supper.
Extra blankets folded near the wall. A quiet corner by the bed, screened as much as possible by David’s spare coat hung from the line.
David came in while she was measuring the distance between the table and the stove with her eyes.
“You’re building something in your head,” he said.
Ella looked at the two chairs, the table, the bed, the stove, the shelf, and the narrow strip of floor between all of them. “A gathering.”
His brow lifted, but not in alarm. “Here?”
“If the weather holds.”
David took off his gloves slowly. “Do you want it to hold?”
That was a more difficult question than it should have been. Ella looked down at her list. “I think so.”
He came to stand beside the table, leaving enough room between them for her to breathe. “Then I hope it holds.”
She handed him the list before she could decide not to. “I need more seating.”
David read the page with the seriousness he might have given to a mill order. “I can bring in the bench from the shed and borrow two stools from Sebastian. The crate by the woodpile will be another seat if no one minds sitting low.”
Ella made a mark beside seating. “The card table?”
“We can put the cards on the trunk after supper.”
“It will be crowded.”
“Likely.”
She waited for him to suggest that perhaps another cabin would be better. He did not.
“If you want,” he said, “I can stand near the door and catch coats before they fall into the stew.”
Ella looked at him sharply, then saw the corner of his mouth. It was almost a joke. She almost smiled at it.
“Please do,” she said.
*****
Saturday arrived clear and cruelly cold. Ella rose before dawn because sleeping after remembering the gathering was impossible. She stirred the coals, set water to heat, and began cutting a chunk of beef into small cubes for the stew she planned to serve. Then she checked her list.
She checked it again after breakfast.
By noon, David had brought in the bench, the crate, two stools, and one extra lantern.
He did each task she asked and none she did not.
When she asked that the bench be three inches to the left, he moved it without comment.
When she changed her mind and moved it back, he only lifted one end and waited for her direction.
“You may tell me if I am being foolish,” she said at last.
David set the stool down. “You are making a small room hold more people than it was built for. That takes measuring.”
She threw her entire body at him, holding him close. David didn’t hesitate as he wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you for understanding me,” she whispered.
He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers for the first time, and though startled, she realized she liked kissing David. After a moment, she pulled back and looked up at him, seeing a new twinkle in his eyes.
“We have too much to do for this.”
“We can continue later, if you’d like,” he offered, giving no indication if he wanted to or didn’t.
Her lips twitched at that. “I’ll think about it.” She knew he’d slept on the hearth for much too long. It was time to invite him to share the bed with her. But that had to wait until later. First, the cabin needed to be readied for their guests.
*****
The first guests arrived before she was ready, which was probably how guests worked everywhere.
Lula came in with Sebastian and enough laughter for three cabins.
Belle followed with Maggie, both of them carrying their babies wrapped so completely that only one small fist showed between them.
Myrtle and Josie arrived together, their husbands lagging behind them.
Agnes hurried in, looking ready for a fun evening, Jasper at her side.
Mrs. Peabody came in, looking skeptical, a baby on one shoulder and two small children at her sides.
Sally arrived last with an extra pot of coffee, saying nothing about the crowding and everything else.
Albert, a friend of Jasper's, came as well, looking slightly uncomfortable.
The cabin filled at once.
Coats hung from pegs, chair backs, and David’s arm before he found places for them.
Boots lined the threshold in rows that would not remain rows long.
Sebastian bumped his shoulder against the shelf and caught a tin before it fell.
Lula declared the cabin cozy, which was a generous word for crowded and warm and smelling of stew.
Ella stood near the stove with the ladle in her hand and felt every sound press against her skin. Voices overlapped. The babies fussed. Someone laughed too close to her ear. A child asked whether there were apples. The kettle hissed because she had pushed it too near the hottest part of the stove.
For a moment, the whole evening seemed to tilt beneath her feet.
David appeared beside the door with two coats over his arm and lifted his gaze to hers. He did not come take the ladle. He did not call for quiet. He only pointed, barely, toward the corner she had prepared.
Ella looked there. The quiet corner still existed. A blanket folded on the bed. A small stool beside it. A place to breathe if anyone needed it. If she needed it.
She drew in one careful breath. Then another.
“Bowls first,” she said.
It was not loud, but it was clear enough. Lula heard and began passing bowls. Belle took spoons from the shelf without being asked. David guided Sebastian toward the bench before he could block the only path between stove and table.
Mrs. Peabody watched everything from a chair, her children flanking her. When she was handed her portion of stew, she said, “Thank you so much for including us. Being widowed has left me alone with the children all the time.”
Ella smiled. “I’m glad you are here,” and to her surprise, she found she meant it.
*****
The evening did not go perfectly.
Ella would remember that first, perhaps because remembering it made the rest more believable.
The bread was too dark at the edges. Myrtle apologized.
Sebastian ate two slices and said he preferred bread with character, which made Lula accuse him of having none himself.
One of Mrs. Peabody’s children tipped a bowl of stew onto the floor, and for three heartbeats Ella saw only disaster—wasted food, wet boards, a child’s trembling lip, everyone watching.
Then Maggie was already reaching for the rag, Belle was lifting the child’s feet away from the spill, and David was saying, “Good thing the floor was hungry too,” in such a mild voice that the child hiccupped instead of crying.
Ella filled another bowl. Not as full as the first, because there were numbers to mind, but enough. “Careful. It is hot.”
The child nodded solemnly, as if trusted with something important. Perhaps he was.
The cabin grew too warm. Then too noisy.
Then both. Maggie used the quiet corner first, sitting with the baby and closing her eyes while conversation rolled past her like weather.
Ella saw Lula notice the corner and soften, though Lula said nothing.
Later Belle sat there with her baby, and sipped her tea for five minutes, smiling at Ella as if the corner had been placed for her alone.
Once, when too many voices gathered near Ella at the stove, her thoughts scattered like spilled buttons. She could not remember whether she had added salt to the second pot. She could not remember where she had set the knife. She could not remember why she had thought this was a good idea.
David appeared at her shoulder, not touching. “Sebastian,” he said, “tell Maggie what you said about the bear at the mill.”
Sebastian turned at once, delighted to be invited into his own story. Half the room turned with him. Noise shifted away from Ella just as David had intended.