“You run half the valley.”
She laughed.
“Through pie?”
“Yes.”
“Effective weapon.”
He smiled.
Age softened them.
His beard grayed.
Her hair silvered.
The kitchen improved.
The original stove was replaced.
The old table remained.
She refused to remove it.
Too many things happened there.
The first proper meal.
The first invoices.
The first serious argument.
The first kiss.
The first time he told her the ranch could disappear and he would still choose her.
The wood carried knife scars and burn marks.
A furniture maker once offered a new table.
She stared until he withdrew the suggestion.
Decades after arriving, the woman stood at that same table cutting roast for a harvest supper.
Her husband entered the doorway.
Older.
Slower.
Still wearing a leather vest.
He stopped.
She looked up.
“Again?”
“What?”
“Standing there staring.”
He smiled.
“Habit.”
“You’ve had forty years to improve.”
“Why?”
“It worked the first time.”
She laughed.
He approached.
The table was full.
Biscuits.
Potatoes.
Roast.
Pie.
Almost exactly like their early supper.
His hand rested on her waist.
She looked toward him.
“Careful.”
“Why?”
“People are coming.”
“So?”
“You’re shameless.”
“Your fault.”
She smiled.
“Everything is.”
He kissed her cheek.
Then whispered:
“I’d still choose you.”
The woman looked toward him.
“Sight unseen?”
“Especially.”
She laughed.
The ranch owner became ill the following winter.
Not dramatically at first.
A cough.
Fatigue.
Then pneumonia.
The doctor came.
The woman knew before he said anything.
Age had finally created a problem they could not outwork.
Her husband lay in the same bedroom they had shared for decades.
The woman sat beside him.
He looked smaller.
She hated that.
One evening, he woke.
“Kitchen?”
“What?”
“Smell.”
She smiled.
“Stew.”
“Good.”
“You can’t eat much.”
“Cruel woman.”
“Yes.”
He reached for her hand.
She gave it.
They remained that way.
Then he whispered:
“Do you remember the station?”
“Of course.”
“I almost left.”
The woman stared.
“What?”
He smiled weakly.
“When I saw you.”
Her face changed.
He squeezed her hand.
“Not because of you.”
“Because I panicked.”
“You looked real.”
She laughed through tears.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.”
“Something from a letter.”
He looked toward her.
“Then you looked at me like you expected judgment.”
“And I realized if I turned away, I’d become every man you already thought I was.”
The woman’s eyes filled.
“So you married me out of guilt?”
“No.”
He smiled.
“I brought you home because I needed help.”
“I married you because I made a promise.”
“I stayed married because you became my life.”