Page 20 of Mail Order Mercy

Later, after Tommy’s snow bear had melted into a puddle near the door and Clara had gone back to arranging stones on the new chest, Dorothy found Albert stacking kindling beside the stove.

“You handled that gently,” she said.

Albert set one piece of kindling into the box and kept his eyes on his hands. “I did not want to take anything that was Henry’s.”

Dorothy leaned her hip against the table, Grace warm and heavy against her shoulder. “You are not taking him from them. Clara made that plain enough.”

“Children can make room faster than grown people,” Albert said.

“Maybe because they do not ask permission from yesterday before they love what is in front of them.” The words surprised Dorothy as much as they seemed to surprise Albert. She looked down at Grace to hide the heat rising in her face. “I only mean they are honest about needing you.”

Albert turned then. “And you?”

Dorothy’s breath caught. The question was quiet, but it filled the small cabin more completely than Tommy’s shouting ever had. “I am trying to learn how,” she said. “Needing someone still feels dangerous.”

Albert nodded slowly. “Then we will go careful. You tell me when I step where I should not. I will tell you when I do not know where to stand.”

Dorothy smiled faintly. “That may be often. This cabin is small.”

“Small cabins require thoughtful feet.” Albert glanced toward the children. “And perhaps fewer stones on the floor.”

Dorothy followed his gaze and saw Tommy lining wet crumbs of snow along the edge of the chest. “Albert, this family is not going to be tidy.”

“I did not marry it because it was tidy.” His voice gentled. “I married into it because it was alive.”

Dorothy looked at him then, really looked. Henry’s memory still lived in the cabin, in the carved horse, in the children’s faces, in the habits she had not yet changed. But Albert was here too, not as a replacement and not as a guest. He was becoming part of the noise, the warmth, the work, and the questions.

That realization warmed and frightened her in equal measure. If Albert belonged, then losing him would hurt in a way Dorothy was not sure she could survive twice. But keeping him at a safe distance would mean denying the children the steadiness already blooming in the room and denying herself the comfort of a man who handled both her grief and her pride with careful hands.

“Then we will learn it together,” she said softly. “How to be a family now.”

By supper, the cabin had become crowded enough to make breathing feel like a shared activity.

Ella and David had come with a covered dish, a loaf of bread, and the firm belief that newly married people should not be left to make their own first proper supper. Dorothy protested that the cabin was too small, but Ella only laughed and said affection took less room than most people thought. David carried in two extra stools and set one beside the storage chest, which immediately made Tommy decide the whole arrangement was a fort.

“If this is a fort,” Tommy announced, crouching behind the chest, “Papa Albert has to guard it.”

Albert looked at the crowded room, the steaming food, the children underfoot, Dorothy balancing Grace while reaching for plates, and Ella quietly shifting a kettle before it could be knocked over. “I believe the fort is under attack by supper,” he said.

“Then I shall sit near the bread,” David said. “A man should defend the most important supplies first.”

Ella gave him a look. “You defend bread by eating it.”

“It has worked well so far,” David said.

“If Papa Albert guards the fort,” Clara said, looking at David, “what do you do?”

David looked gravely at the children. “I am the official taster. It is a dangerous position, but someone must make sure the bread is safe.”

Ella set a plate in front of him. “You have shown great courage in that duty for the entire time I’ve known you.”

Tommy peered around the chest. “Can I be a taster too?”

“Only if you taste vegetables,” Dorothy said.

Tommy withdrew behind the fort at once. “I am too young for danger.”

Clara giggled. Dorothy tried not to, but David saw the effort and smiled into his cup.