Chapter 11
The tea had gone lukewarm in the cup before Maria realized she hadn't touched it, too caught up in turning over the day in her mind.
"You've got the look of somebody with a great deal on her mind," Mrs. Elizabeth said, settling into the chair across from her with her own cup. "Good things, unless I miss my guess."
"I think they are," Maria admitted. "I hardly dare say it aloud, in case saying it spoils it somehow. But I think I'm hopeful, Mrs. Elizabeth. More hopeful than I expected to be, this soon."
"There's no harm in hope. Some folks treat it like it's bad luck to admit to it, but I've never found that hoping for a good thing made it any less likely to happen." Mrs. Elizabeth took a sip of her tea. "Samson asked you to call him by his given name yet?"
"He did, actually. This afternoon, before I left the store. He said Mr. Tolliver made him feel like his own father, and he wasn't ready to feel that old."
Mrs. Elizabeth laughed, a warm sound. "That sounds like him. He's got a dry way about him, once you get past the quiet."
"You've known him a long while, then."
"Since before he married Livvy, even. Watched him grow up some, in a manner of speaking. He wasn't always the settled sort you've met. Younger, he had a wandering streak in him, went off prospecting for a few years, chasing his fortune same as half the young men out here did back then."
"Did he find it?"
"Not in the way he was looking for. Enough to get himself set up here, buy the store, but no great fortune, nothing that made him rich the way he'd dreamed.
I think it taught him something, though, coming back the way he did.
He settled into himself after that. Built something folks could rely on, instead of chasing something that might never come.
" Mrs. Elizabeth's face softened. "He was a good husband to Livvy.
Steady, the way he is now. It was a hard thing, watching the fever take her.
Two years he mourned her proper, before he ever thought about writing to anybody. "
"I didn't know it had been a fever."
“It came quick. There was nothing anybody could've done.
" Mrs. Elizabeth reached over and patted Maria's hand.
"I only tell you so you understand what you're stepping into.
He's not a man looking to replace what he lost. He's a man who's ready to build something new, and I think that's a fine thing to be ready for, at his age and with those children needing him the way they do. "
"I want to be part of that," Maria said. "I felt it today, watching him with Billy and Meg. And I felt something else, too, if I'm honest, something I didn't expect to feel so soon."
"Then don't talk yourself out of it just because it came quicker than you planned for.
" Mrs. Elizabeth smiled at her, and there was real warmth in it, not merely politeness.
"I like you, Maria. I'll say that plain, since I don't see much use in dancing around a true thing.
You've got a kindness in you that isn't put on for show, and this town could always use more of that. "
Maria felt something ease in her chest at the words, a knot she hadn't fully realized she'd been carrying since she stepped off the train.
"Thank you," she said. "I needed to hear that more than I think I let on."
"Most folks do," Mrs. Elizabeth said, and refilled both their cups.