Adeline looked skeptical.
Nathaniel pretended offense.
“You doubt me?”
“I don’t know you well enough yet.”
He left.
Thirty minutes later, Adeline came downstairs to the smell of burned biscuits.
She stood in the kitchen doorway.
Nathaniel was staring at a blackened tray like it had personally betrayed him.
She covered her mouth.
Nathaniel looked over.
“Not one word.”
Her shoulders began shaking.
“Not one.”
She laughed.
He did too.
That was the first sound the house accepted from her.
By the end of supper, it felt as though the walls had been waiting.
The next morning Adeline rose before Nathaniel.
He entered the kitchen at five-thirty to find coffee already boiling.
She stood beside the stove in a plain deep teal dress with a cream apron.
Without her traveling cloak, Nathaniel fully understood the extraordinary size of her.
She was far heavier than any woman he had known.
Perhaps five or six times the weight of smaller women in town.
Her body moved with effort but not helplessness.
She had adapted.
When she turned, she caught him staring.
Nathaniel immediately looked toward the coffee.
“Morning.”
Adeline’s expression closed slightly.
“Morning.”
Nathaniel recognized the change.
“Did I offend you?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She poured coffee.
“You looked.”
Nathaniel leaned against the table.
“I did.”
“I know I am very large.”
He heard defensive preparation in her voice.
A speech repeated too many times.
She continued.
“You do not have to pretend otherwise.”
“I wasn’t.”
She looked at him.
Nathaniel searched for the right words.
“I was wondering how you got downstairs without making the third step squeak.”
Adeline blinked.
“What?”
“That board has woken me for six years.”
He pointed.
“You somehow defeated it.”
For three seconds she stared.
Then laughed despite herself.
Nathaniel smiled.
“Yes, you’re large.”
Her laughter stopped.
He continued.
“I have eyes.”
Her face hardened.
“But I invited a woman here.”
“Not a dress size.”
“Not a horse.”
“Not a piece of furniture.”
“A woman.”
Adeline looked down.
Nathaniel walked toward the coffee.
“I hope eventually you’ll stop expecting me to punish you for something I knew before you arrived.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I knew enough from your letters.”
“How?”
“You said you were very heavy.”
“I thought perhaps you meant…”
“Two hundred pounds?”
She looked embarrassed.
Nathaniel shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Adeline stared at him.
“Men say that until it does.”
Nathaniel poured coffee.
“Then judge me after it does.”
He went outside.
Adeline stood alone in the kitchen for a long time.
The first three days passed gently.
Too gently.
Nathaniel worked cattle.
Adeline organized the kitchen.
She discovered his pantry contained enough beans to survive an invasion but almost no spices.
Nathaniel discovered she kept books better than he did.
She corrected two ranch ledger errors before noon Wednesday.
He stared at the columns.
“You found those already?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been looking at that ledger for three months.”
“That explains why you never found them.”
He looked at her.
Adeline smiled.
Nathaniel smiled back.
Thursday, she baked bread.