“Yes.”
“How much?”
Nathan raised an eyebrow.
“What kind of question is that?”
“An anniversary question.”
He thought theatrically.
“Enough that I had rehearsed asking you to supper seven times.”
She stared.
“Seven?”
“Yes.”
“And failed?”
“Yes.”
“You repaired a pump but could not ask a woman to eat.”
“Pumps are simpler.”
She laughed.
Nathan became serious.
“I nearly asked you after church once.”
“What stopped you?”
“Grayson walked over.”
Eliza’s expression changed.
Nathan continued.
“You looked uncomfortable.”
“I thought adding another man to your attention would be selfish.”
She touched his hand.
“It wasn’t.”
“I know now.”
Eliza leaned against him.
“Sometimes I wonder whether I would have said yes.”
“To supper?”
“Yes.”
Nathan smiled.
“You would.”
“Confident.”
“You married me.”
“Under duress.”
“Still counts.”
She kissed him.
Years passed.
The school grew.
One room became two.
Then three.
Eliza eventually became headmistress.
She hated the title at first.
Nathan loved using it at home.
“Headmistress, coffee?”
“Stop.”
“Headmistress, where are my gloves?”
“Where you left them.”
“Headmistress—”
She threw a cushion.
He ducked.
At forty-eight, Eliza supervised construction of a new schoolhouse.
Brick.
Large windows.
Separate cloakrooms.
Library.
When officials asked what should be carved above the entrance, one suggested:
MORALITY, DISCIPLINE, KNOWLEDGE.
Eliza stared.
“No.”
The committee chairman blinked.
“What would you suggest?”
She thought.
Then:
TRUTH BEFORE REPUTATION.
Nathan heard later.
He said:
“Subtle.”
“I abandoned subtlety around 1885.”
“Correct.”
The phrase remained above the school doors for decades.
Grayson left Willow Creek eventually.
His business collapsed after creditors uncovered more irregularities.
He moved east.
Rumor said Ohio.
Eliza never verified.
That chapter no longer deserved her effort.
Once, years later, a former pupil asked whether she forgave him.
Eliza answered:
“I stopped allowing him to occupy useful space in my mind.”
The pupil frowned.
“That isn’t forgiveness.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Is it enough?”
“For me.”
Nathan approved.
He had never been interested in forcing beautiful moral endings upon ugly experiences.
Their marriage lasted forty-six years.
Long enough that people forgot how it started.
New residents assumed theirs had been some grand frontier romance.
Eliza found that hilarious.
One young teacher once said:
“Everyone says Mr. Cole courted you in the rain.”
Eliza nearly choked on tea.
Nathan, older and silver-haired by then, looked delighted.
“Yes.”
She glared.
“Do not encourage this.”
The young woman asked:
“Is it true?”