She wiped them.
“I hate when you say sensible things during arguments.”
“I know.”
They bought boots the next day.
Together.
Nathan did not pay secretly.
Eliza paid half.
He paid half.
Ridiculous.
Perfect.
Their physical relationship developed at the pace Eliza chose.
The separate rooms lasted four months.
Not six.
One winter night, wind rattled the shutters.
Nathan walked Eliza to her door after they spent the evening reading.
They kissed.
Then again.
Eliza did not open the door.
Nathan waited.
She touched his chest.
“Do you want to come in?”
His breathing changed.
“Yes.”
“If I change my mind?”
“I leave.”
“If I become nervous?”
“We stop.”
“If I tell you I need space tomorrow?”
“You get it.”
Eliza smiled.
“You prepared answers.”
“For months.”
She laughed softly.
Then opened the door.
What happened remained theirs.
Tender.
Adult.
Sometimes awkward.
More laughter than Eliza expected.
Nathan discovered Eliza hated being tickled.
Eliza discovered Nathan’s composure disappeared entirely when she kissed the scar near his collarbone.
Neither fact entered the contract.
By spring, they moved into Nathan’s room because it had the larger window.
Eliza kept her old room as a study.
People in town eventually stopped discussing whether their marriage was real.
Then started discussing when they would have children.
People require new subjects.
Eliza became pregnant after two years.
She miscarried before telling anyone beyond Nathan.
The loss changed them.
Not destroyed.
Changed.
Eliza sat on the bed afterward staring at her hands.
“I teach children every day.”
Nathan sat beside her.
She whispered:
“I thought…”
“I know.”
“No.”
“You don’t.”
She looked at him.
“I thought because I had given so much of myself to other people’s children, perhaps life would…”
She stopped.
Nathan did not tell her everything happened for a reason.
He would not insult grief with explanations.
He simply held her.
Weeks later, Eliza said:
“What if it never happens?”
Nathan answered:
“Then I still have you.”
“That sounds like something men say because they think women need comforting.”
“Then ignore the comfort.”
She almost smiled.
“The fact remains.”
They never had a biological child.
For several years, this hurt.
Then life widened differently.
Eliza taught generations.
Nathan became the man children sought when wheels broke, horses went lame, or fathers were absent.
One former pupil named Eddie Morris, the boy who once struggled with fractions, eventually apprenticed with Nathan.
At twenty-one, Eddie admitted his own father had disappeared west.
Nathan never formally adopted him.
No papers.
No new surname.
Still, Eddie’s first son called Nathan Grandpa.
Nobody corrected him.
The six-month contract remained locked in Eliza’s desk.
At their tenth anniversary, Nathan found her reading it.
He leaned over her shoulder.
“Terrible handwriting.”
“That is yours.”
“Exactly.”
She traced the crossed-out ending.
“What if you had signed the original?”
Nathan thought.
“I would have spent month five panicking.”
“Only month five?”
“Probably month two.”
Eliza smiled.
“You wanted me before I arrived that night.”