Someone played fiddle.
At one point Martha looked across the hall.
Elias stood near the door talking with Halbrook, now older and nearly bald.
Elias sensed her watching.
He looked over.
Smiled.
Not rare anymore.
Still hers.
She remembered the porch.
The timber.
His hand beneath hers.
The almost-kiss.
The stranger riding up with papers that threatened everything.
At the time, Martha believed the danger was losing the land.
Later she understood the land dispute gave them something unexpected.
It forced them to decide what “we” meant before either had formally admitted one existed.
She crossed the room.
Slowly.
People moved aside without fuss.
Elias met her halfway.
“Dance?”
She laughed.
“You know I don't dance.”
“I know.”
“Then why ask?”
“Wanted to hear you say no.”
She rolled her eyes.
He put one arm around her.
They swayed anyway.
Barely a dance.
Martha’s body made some movements difficult.
Elias adjusted.
No embarrassment.
No audience mattered.
She rested her head against him.
“You still want me standing this close?”
His beard brushed her forehead.
“Closer.”
She smiled.
“Greedy.”
“Yes.”
The room blurred.
Fiddle.
Laughter.
Warm lamps.
Martha whispered:
“Do you remember what you said?”
“When?”
“Porch.”
“I said many intelligent things.”
“No.”
“You said you spent a long time believing you didn't deserve someone standing close.”
Elias nodded.
Martha looked up.
“Do you still believe that?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He smiled.
“What do you believe now?”
Elias thought.
Then:
“That deserving had very little to do with it.”
Martha frowned.
He continued.
“We were both alive.”
“Both lonely.”
“Both foolish.”
“You were more foolish.”
“Probably.”
“And we chose.”
Martha’s expression softened.
Elias squeezed her gently.
“I think choosing mattered more.”
Years later, when Elias died first, quietly in his sleep at seventy-three, Martha buried him beside Anna and Benjamin.
Some people wondered whether that was painful.
It was not.
Martha chose the place.
Anna had been part of his life.
Benjamin too.
Loving Elias never required pretending he began with Martha.
She placed his stone between the spring and the aspens.
Then sat beside it.
Her body was older.
Still very large.
Mobility difficult now.
Two neighbors helped her reach the grave.
She hated needing help.
Accepted anyway.
Martha rested one hand on Elias’s stone.
“Stingy man.”
Wind moved through leaves.
She smiled through tears.