Page 4 of Mail Order Mercy

Mrs. Johnson raised her eyebrows as she began setting goods on the counter. “Planning to feed every man at the mill yourself?”

“For me,” Albert said. “I’m tired of eating whatever the cook decides can be boiled beyond recognition.”

That was not much of a lie. He was tired of many things. But he was not about to hand Yeti a piece of Dorothy’s pride and let it be passed from mouth to mouth before noon.

To his knowledge, Mrs. Johnson had always been circumspect, but he wasn’t part of the ladies’ gossip either.

He paid for the supplies, stacked them into two wooden boxes, and carried them through the waking town before anyone could ask too many questions. The boxes were heavy, but not heavy enough. Nothing he carried could weigh as much as the memory of Clara’s biscuit.

Dorothy opened the door to his knock with Grace on her hip and a cautious look in her eyes. The cabin seemed even smaller in the morning light. Albert saw at once what he had refused to see for six months. A patched blanket hung over one wall where the wind must have slipped through the boards. Clara’s shoes sat near the stove, one sole tied on with string. Tommy’s coat lay across the chair, the cuffs turned up because there was no more cloth to let down. Each thing seemed to point a finger at him. He had eaten warm meals, slept under good blankets, and gone to work every morning telling himself Dorothy was managing. He had needed that lie, and the cabin was stripping it away board by board. Once Albert stepped inside with the boxes, there was barely room for him, Dorothy, the children, and the supplies.

“What is all this?” Dorothy asked.

Albert set the boxes near the table. “Supplies.”

“I can see that.” Dorothy’s cheeks colored. “Albert, I can’t accept this. Ella has already brought more than she should. I won’t have the whole town feeding my children while I stand by and do nothing.”

She hated the way her eyes went to the flour before she could stop them. A good mother should have been relieved to see food for her children. Dorothy was relieved, so relieved she could have sat down on the floor and cried, but relief still tasted too much like failure.

“I owed Henry money,” Albert said, because it was the only thing he had thought of that might let her keep her chin up. “I should have seen it paid back sooner.”

Dorothy’s chin lifted in a way that reminded Albert painfully of Henry. “If my husband loaned you money, he would have told me. He never hid hardship from me. Not even when he thought it would frighten me.” Dorothy stared at him. “Henry would never have loaned money without telling me. Not once.”

Albert looked at the floor. He had forgotten how honest Henry had been with her. “Then maybe I owed him for something else.”

“You’re reaching for debt because you know I will not take charity,” Dorothy said, though her voice trembled on the last word.

For friendship. For courage. For letting him work beside a good man and call him brother in every way that mattered. Albert could not say all of that, not with her staring at him as if any answer might turn into pity. “For being Henry,” he said finally.

Dorothy’s eyes softened for half a breath, then pride stiffened her again. “That isn’t a debt.”

“It is if I make it one,” Albert said quietly. “Please, Dorothy. Let me do this much.”

Dorothy wanted to tell him no again. The word sat ready on her tongue because no was safer than yes. Yes meant owing him something she could not name. Yes meant letting Henry’s friend see the bare shelves and the thin faces she had tried so hard to hide. But yes also meant Grace might have milk in her belly and Clara might stop saving biscuits for breakfast. Dorothy looked toward the children and felt the no weaken.

Tommy came to stand beside the wood box and peered into one of Albert’s crates. “Did you bring firewood too?”

Albert turned toward the stove. The wood box beside it held two small pieces and a scattering of bark. The fire was little more than a stubborn glow. Three children lived in that room. A nursing mother lived in that room. Dorothy had been keeping the fire low because she had no other choice.

Albert looked from the wood box to the children. Clara had drawn close to the stove without thinking, holding her hands out to the weak heat. Tommy’s nose was red from the cold inside his own home. Grace fussed against Dorothy’s shoulder and rooted blindly, hungry again though Dorothy’s face was pale with exhaustion. Every small sign accused him more sharply than David’s question had. He had not merely stayed away from Dorothy. He had stayed away from Clara’s cold hands, from Tommy’s empty belly, from Grace’s hungry cry. He had told himself grief excused him, but grief had not put one stick of wood in that box.

“Not yet,” Albert told Tommy. “But I will.”

A draft touched the back of Albert’s neck. He looked toward the door and saw daylight showing along one side where the frame had shifted. The cold had found that gap and made itself at home.

“Has it been like that long?” he asked.

Dorothy followed his gaze to the crooked door. “Since the first hard freeze,” she said.

“Why did you not tell someone?” Albert asked.

Dorothy’s eyes flashed. “Who did you want me to tell? The men at the mill who looked through me after the funeral because they didn’t know what to say? To you?”

Albert had no answer. He had earned that blow, and it was lighter than he deserved.

Dorothy shifted Grace against her shoulder. “The door swelled in the fall and settled wrong after the first hard freeze. Henry would have fixed it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.