She nodded. He laughed, softly, almost surprised, the way people laugh when it comes on its own. Not at her. Just because something warm moved inside him. Sarah stood at the window watching them. He didn’t see her.
Sarah never pushed. That was maybe the strangest thing to Mike. He kept expecting pressure, advice, speeches about how he couldn’t go on living like this. He’d heard all that from his neighbor Ellen, from Walt, from his cousin who’d come by in September.
Everybody talked. Everybody advised. He never listened. Sarah said nothing. Instead, when in the evening he reached for the bottle, she’d sit down nearby with a mug of tea and start talking about something else.
About how Sophie had decided to name the wooden horse Daisy, for some reason. About how Ellen apparently knew somebody selling young hens in the spring at a fair price. About how Sarah had found several packets of seeds in the cellar, sealed and still good from last year—they ought to sprout.
She just talked, being there. Sometimes they sat in silence, and that was fine too. Gradually Mike noticed the evening bottle had become half a bottle, then a glass. Then some nights he put it back unopened and took a mug instead. He didn’t think of it as a decision. It just happened that way.
The night he told her about Laura came in mid-February. He didn’t know himself how it happened. He’d gone to bed normally, woke around three, and couldn’t get back to sleep. He lay there staring at the ceiling, and the ceiling felt heavy.
He got up, dressed, and went outside. It wasn’t bitter cold, maybe fifteen degrees. Quiet. Stars overhead. He sat on the porch steps and looked up at the sky.
The door creaked about ten minutes later. Sarah came out wearing his old shearling coat from the hall, shoved her feet into boots, and sat down beside him without a word. He didn’t ask why she was up. She didn’t explain.
They sat a long time. Then he said—not to her exactly, more to the sky:
“Her name was Laura.”
Sarah didn’t move. She just listened.
“We lived here six years. She came out here scared of cows. Then she got used to them. Ended up milking them herself.”
He paused.
“We were expecting a boy. I’d already picked out a name. Then the road drifted shut.”
Sarah said nothing. She didn’t comfort him, didn’t say everything would be okay, didn’t say time heals, just sat there beside him, and that was right, because words would have been useless and she knew it.
Then she said quietly, not as a question:
“She was happy with you. You can tell by who you used to be. Before.”
“How would you know who I was before?”
“Ellen told me.”
He was quiet.
“Ellen tells a lot,” he said. “She means well.”
“She does,” Sarah agreed. The stars hung low. Rusty crawled out from under the gate and lay down by their feet.
“I think it’s my fault,” Mike said. “Should’ve taken her in earlier. I thought we had time.”
“You couldn’t know the storm would hit like that.”
“No. But I think about it every day.”
Sarah didn’t answer that. Didn’t try to talk him out of it. That would’ve been foolish and not true. She just sat there. Then Mike stood up.
