“How do you know?”
“They're discussing whether you're actually as strict as you pretend.”
Daniel frowned.
“What’s the conclusion?”
“Clara thinks you're soft.”
“Clara is banned from breakfast.”
Emily laughed.
Daniel wrapped one arm around her waist.
He whispered:
“You all right?”
She nodded.
Then shook her head.
Then cried.
Daniel sighed.
“I recognize this.”
“Good tears.”
“Apparently.”
She leaned into him.
“I thought I would always feel like something was missing.”
“Do you?”
Emily looked through the partly open door.
Two little girls.
One bed each.
Clothes folded badly.
A wooden horse Daniel carved.
Books.
Life.
“No.”
She whispered.
“Different doesn't mean missing.”
Daniel kissed her temple.
Years later, Emily would remember that sentence more clearly than almost anything.
Different doesn't mean missing.
Ruth became the serious one.
Loved numbers.
Hated sewing.
Clara talked enough for three households and developed an alarming talent for climbing trees.
Daniel became exactly the father Emily always suspected he could be.
Firm.
Patient until he wasn't.
Terrible at braiding hair.
He tried.
Clara wore crooked braids for nearly a year.
Emily refused to fix them because Daniel needed practice.
The girls called them Daniel and Emily at first.
Then Mr. Mercer and Mrs. Mercer.
Then one winter evening Clara shouted “Papa!” from the barn without thinking.
Daniel froze.
Emily watched from the porch.
Clara did not notice.
Daniel turned away quickly.
Emily pretended she did not see him wipe his eyes.
Ruth called Emily “Mama” six months later.
Quietly.
She was sick with fever.
Half asleep.
Emily sat beside her bed cooling her forehead.
Ruth whispered:
“Mama.”
Emily stopped breathing.
Ruth slept.
Emily left the room and found Daniel.
He took one look at her face.
“What happened?”
Emily could barely speak.
Daniel hugged her.
No grand announcement.
The next morning Ruth called her Emily again.
Emily said nothing.
Two weeks later she said Mama deliberately.
That time both cried.
Ruth rolled her eyes.
“Adults are strange.”
They were.
The girls grew.
The ranch grew.
Daniel added acreage.
Emily started a small school group during winter because several neighboring children could not travel safely into town.
Their home became noisy.
Messy.
Exactly what Daniel had once wanted.
Then, when Emily was thirty-six, eight years after their wedding, she became ill.
At least she thought she was ill.
Nausea.
Exhaustion.
Food tasted strange.
She hid it for four days.
Daniel noticed immediately.
“You're sick.”
“No.”
“You're green.”
“I am not green.”
“You almost threw up when I fried bacon.”
“You burned it.”
“I cooked bacon the same way for twenty years.”
“Then you've been wrong for twenty years.”
Daniel stared.
Emily walked away.
He followed.
“Doctor.”