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Color welcomed her to Kansas: a symphony of cheerful reds, lush yellows and mellow oranges, vivid emeralds and softer greens, shades of blue, indigo, and violet. Everything was so vibrant, so rich and alive. It was more beautiful than Emily could ever have imagined.

She felt alert, awake to her surroundings in a way she’d never been before, as if she’d just awakened from a dream.

Every color was brighter, every sound clearer, every flower more beautiful and fragrant.

She gazed upon the shimmering mirage of emeralds and golds, and couldn’t believe such a place existed, or that she would now call that place home.

“It’s heaven, Henry!”

“If you believe in such a thing.”

“A fairy tale, then!”

She sat up in the seat of the Model T Ford that Henry had borrowed from a man he knew who owned the general store in Liberal.

She wanted to drink in all that was new and exciting.

In time, she would tell Henry what had happened in the months they’d been apart, but now was not for dwelling on things left behind.

Now was for the giddy thrill of arrival.

“What’s that over there?” she asked, pointing to a bird that resembled a cross between a grouse and a hen.

“That’s a boomer.”

“A boomer!”

“A prairie chicken. Named for the noise it makes. Delicious. Tastes a little like beef. I prefer wild turkey, though. And it’s just coming into sage grouse season—you’ll hear their funny popping noise—and wait until you see their courtship dance!

And those jackrabbits there, see, by the roadside? Tasty as heck in a stew, cooked slow.”

“Is everything here a meal?”

“Pretty much! Except the wolves and the coyotes. We are their meal.”

“Henry! Don’t joke.” Her eyes searched his, a smile on her lips, laughter in her cheeks.

She felt so light and free after the heavy burden of responsibility she’d carried in Chicago.

Here, she felt buoyed by Henry’s infectious enthusiasm, his delight at seeing her again, his carefree obliviousness to all that had happened while they’d been apart. “I missed you,” she said.

“I missed you, too. Couldn’t sleep for thinking about you, and now here you are, looking like a dream.”

She’d made a last-minute decision to swap the practical beige two-piece outfit she’d picked out the night before for a soft rose-colored sweater dress and her favorite ruby-red Mary Janes. A burst of color and confidence to begin her new life.

“Although it might not be the best outfit for hauling water and skinning rabbits,” Henry teased. “We need to get you some proper clothes, Mrs.Gale! Get my farm girl some dungarees and some chewing tabacca!”

Their laughter filled the air as the Model T bumped over potholes and juddered over cattle guards.

Emily asked question after question, like an inquisitive child eager to learn, as Henry gave her the names for the native flora she didn’t know: green buffalo grass and blue grass, the blue-gray sagebrush, purple verbena and the delicate prairie violet, fields speckled with yellow tickseed, groundsel and cinquefoil.

He spoke fondly of the folk he’d met and the friends he’d made.

He told her about the jobs he’d completed and those yet to tackle.

He asked about their niece. Emily kept the details brief.

“Annie still think we’re making a terrible mistake?”

“Of course.”

“And you?”

Emily turned in her seat. “Pull over, Henry.”

“What? Why? Are you serious?”

“Pull over.”

He pulled the car to a stop and looked at her, his face unusually serious. “Emily, what is it?”

“I want you to promise me that you will never ask me that again. I don’t care what Annie thinks. I know what I think. I know that you are the best thing that ever happened to me, Henry Gale, and that we are going to build a wonderful life here. Together.”

His concern made way for a grin. “I promise never to ask again. I’m sorry.”

“And now you can kiss me.”

He leaned toward her and took her face in his hands. “Oh, that I can do easily. That I can definitely do for the rest of my life.”

They were entirely alone, watched only by the birds that darted among the crops and the ’hoppers that chirped in the long grass.

They clambered into the back seat, laughing like high school lovers as they searched for each other with passion and urgency and the prairie wind danced in gentle waves against Emily’s skin.

—

The motorcar rumbled on for mile after mile, the wheels turning steadily as they passed lush fertile land, flat and unending, like a thousand starched bedsheets laid end to end.

“Folk say there is more of nothing here than something,” Henry said.

“I can see why,” Emily said. “It’s so flat. So endless.”

It really was. The view just kept going until the land met the sky some unfathomable distance away.

Emily turned her head this way and that as she took in the vastness of the landscape, and the promise of a new beginning that had prickled at the back of her neck all the way from Chicago became a stronger, more visceral sensation.

She willed the wheels to turn faster as her pulse quickened in anticipation of her first sighting of the home Henry had built for them.

He reached for her hand. “I hope you like the place.”

She pulled his hand to her lips and smothered it with kisses. “I’ll love it. I’d live in a woodshed, as long as you were there with me.”

He laughed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Eventually, she saw it. A sloped roof in the distance. A chimney. A white picket fence. A pretty timber house surrounded by a swaying ocean of winter wheat.

Henry turned through a gateway, drove along a rutted track marked out by fence posts, and pulled the motorcar to a stop.

“Last stop, miss. Gale Farm. The end of the line.”

She placed a hand to her chest as she took in the pretty timber home, the steps up to the porch, the swing seat, the flower boxes at the windows.

“Oh, Henry. It’s beautiful.”

She stepped from the motorcar and placed one foot on the ground, then the other, swiveling the toes of her ruby shoes back and forth as if to root herself into the earth beneath.

Their earth.

She felt for the piece of Connemara marble in her pocket, remembering how her Granny Mary had pressed it into her hands the morning she’d left Ireland.

“A piece of home for when you’re far away.

Keep it safe, a ghrá, and it will keep you safe in return.

” She tipped her head back and took a long deep breath, filling her lungs with the sweet meadow-scented air.

No hint of motor fumes or suffocating smoke spewing from factory chimneys.

This air was pure and clean. She felt restored by it.

Henry joined her, his arm around her waist as they admired their new home together.

“It’s perfect,” she said as her eyes searched his, a smile on her lips.

Months of working outdoors and hard physical labor had left their mark in the weathered tan on Henry’s face and the new muscles in his arms. He seemed taller too, like the sunflowers the state was known for.

He studied her face a moment before he scooped her into his arms, walked up the porch steps, shouldered open the screen door, and carried her over the threshold, just as he’d promised he would.

“Welcome home, Mrs.Gale. There’s no place like it.”

She laughed as he put her gently down.

She turned a full circle to take it all in, then walked from one side of the house to the other, opening doors and drawers, running her fingertips over the table and bedspread, lifting things up and putting them down again.

There was a good-sized kitchen, a laundry room and larder, a living room with a fireplace and rocking chairs either side of the chimney breast, a bedroom with an iron bedstead and a primrose-yellow bedspread.

He’d thought of everything. There was even a bowl of apples on the table.

Apples.

She smiled to herself.

“Wherever did you find everything?” she asked, a bemused smile on her face. “I didn’t have you down as a homemaker!”

“Mrs.Miller at the general store helped with the finishing touches. She said I couldn’t possibly let you arrive to an unmade bed. You’ll meet her soon. She and Hank have been a great help.”

“Where’s the washroom?” she asked, realizing she hadn’t seen a bathtub or a toilet.

Henry laughed. “We’ve a copper bath and an outhouse. We’re prairie folk now, Em. Back to basics.”

Of course. It was going to take some getting used to.

“And there’s one more room. The most important room in the house.” He lifted a rug to reveal a hatch, which he pulled open. A ladder led down into a dark space beneath. “The cyclone cellar. This is where we’ll shelter when a tornado comes through. And it will. Sure as eggs is eggs.”

Emily nodded. “I know.”

Henry had told her what to expect. He hadn’t shied away from the threat from tornadoes and snakes and scorpions, the wolves and coyotes, the hard work, the unpredictability.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Take a look.”

She climbed down the ladder into the dark space. It was just high enough to stand upright, and wide enough for a couple of people to hunker down. She couldn’t imagine being cooped up down there while a storm raged above.

Henry peered through the hatch. “So, what did I miss in Chicago, apart from baby Dorothy arriving in the middle of a storm?”

Emily stalled. She was so happy. Too happy to bring any sadness to this hopeful new world.

“Oh, not much. Annie being overly dramatic. John being full of himself. The wind biting chunks out of your skin. The usual.”

Henry laughed. “Seems like I had a lucky escape!”

Emily pushed aside the ache of her loss and the nagging dread of Annie’s secret. She would hide those dark thoughts in the cyclone cellar where Henry would never find them.

“You used extra strong nails, right?” she said as she climbed back up. “Good timber?”

“The best and strongest.”

She walked to the window then and looked outside.

Behind the house, a short distance along a dirt path, was a well, and a windmill that brought the water up from the old riverbed below.

She’d lived close to water most of her life, so it felt strange to be so far away from any lake or ocean.

There was nothing but land and sky as far as she could see.

Not one other home. Not one other soul. They were entirely alone, with only each other and endless acres of fertile prairie for company.

“It’s like we’re the last people on earth, Henry.”

He placed his hand on the small of her back as he joined her at the window. “It’ll take a bit of getting used to after the city, but I already feel at home here. You will too, in time.”

But he’d misunderstood. The sense of isolation was unfamiliar and daunting, but it was thrilling. It made her feel alive. “I already feel at home,” she whispered. “I already know this is where I was meant to be.” She turned to him. “It really is perfect, Henry.”

He smiled as he kissed her nose. “It isn’t perfect yet, but it’s a start. And it’s all ours. Every last inch.”

Emily heard the echo of her mother’s words.

It was her only regret—that her mammy would never see this perfect place Henry had built for them, would never know that every word she’d read in the pamphlet was true.

Emily closed her eyes and made a silent promise to honor her mother’s dream of coming here, to stitch her parents’ memory into the samplers she would embroider and hang on the walls of this sweet little prairie home.

“There’s something I’d like to do, Henry,” she said. “A tradition, to bless this place and bring us good luck.”

She fetched her father’s fiddle from the car and brought it inside. She closed her eyes and played the songs from the old land, songs of remembrance and longing, a piece of her past to root her to the present as she felt the warm embrace of her family surround her once again.

Emily lay awake that night, listening to the silence, her eyes searching the dark unfamiliar corners of her new home, settling herself within its impenetrable blackness, making peace with the howls of coyotes and buffalo wolves in the distance.

Too alert and excited to sleep, her mind wandered the vast landscape beyond their front door, so full of promise of the life they could make here. She made a pact with the prairie that night: They would treat it well, if it would be generous in return.

Eventually, her body pressed against Henry’s, she slept.

She was safe and loved here.

She was home.