He removed his gloves.
“You did all this?”
“I cooked.”
“The table.”
“I found cloth.”
“The pine.”
“It was outside.”
“I know where pine comes from.”
She smiled.
“Congratulations.”
He sat.
They ate.
Quietly at first.
Then Caleb said:
“Thank you.”
“For beans?”
“For…”
He looked around.
“The house hasn't smelled like this in years.”
Eleanor waited.
He offered nothing more.
She did not ask.
The next morning Caleb left before sunrise.
Eleanor woke to coffee already made.
She stared at the pot.
He had remembered.
That was irritatingly thoughtful.
By noon she repaired the crooked curtain rod.
Mended a torn canvas.
Cleaned two shelves.
Moved tools Caleb kept inexplicably near food.
When he returned, he stopped again.
“You moved my awl.”
“It has no business beside onions.”
“I knew where it was.”
“Now you know where it is better.”
He looked toward the new location.
“Interfering woman.”
“Temporary wife.”
“Worse.”
She smiled.
Days developed rhythm.
Caleb built the morning fire.
Eleanor left coffee warming before he returned from the barn.
He cut wood.
She cooked.
He handled livestock.
She repaired linens.
Neither assigned duties.
Neither kept score.
That was new for both.
One morning Eleanor discovered three ledgers in a desk drawer.
Feed purchases.
Timber sales.
Equipment.
Taxes.
She read for ten minutes.
Then twenty.
Something was wrong.
Caleb entered carrying kindling.
She held up a ledger.
“Why are you paying Rutherford Freight twice for November?”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Two invoices.”
He approached.
She showed him.
“Same shipment weight.”
“Different dates.”
“Four days apart.”
Caleb frowned.
“I paid what came.”
“Did you receive two shipments?”
“No.”
“You've been overcharged.”
He stared at the page.
Then her.
“How long would it take you to review all of these?”
Eleanor looked at the stack.
“Two days.”
“Do it.”
She smiled.
“That sounds like work.”
“You're part of the household.”
“Equal standing?”
He remembered.
“Equal standing.”
Eleanor spent two days auditing.
By the end she identified nine duplicate charges.
Three inflated freight fees.
Two suspicious equipment invoices.
And a property levy that should never have been assessed because the North Slope remained under probate review.
Total loss:
Nearly four hundred dollars.
More than her entire contract payment.
Caleb stared at the total.
“I've been robbed.”
“Administratively.”
“Worse.”
She laughed.
Then he looked at her differently.
Not as a temporary wife.
Not as someone performing domestic labor.
As a person who had seen something he could not.
Eleanor felt the difference.
It warmed her in a way she did not trust.
The first serious storm came ten days later.
Caleb left before noon to inspect upper fencing.
By three, snow thickened.
By four, the mountain disappeared beyond the window.
Eleanor tried reading.
Failed.
Made bread.
Ruined it.