Page 173 of Head Room

Her wardrobe was diminished and her surroundings straitened, but Adelaide still held domain over all around her.

“Not so much changed, though she seemed to view me more favorably and assigns no blame to me for having the poor taste to join the Union army rather than dying honorably in prison.”

Some had.

“Don’t be mistaken, Nathaniel.Few are not changed.Even Laidey.Her first concern is a live suitor.Dead heroes don’t answer her needs at all.Don’t leave your jaw hanging that way, or someone might kick it.”

He burst into laughter, and she joined him.

“Oh, it’s good to hear you laugh.Nathaniel.”

She reached over and pushed back a lock of his hair the way she had when he was a boy.He would jerk away, embarrassed at such babying.He did not jerk away now.

When her hand dropped from his face, he took it between both of his.

She would have spoken, but they heard a wracking cough from inside.They remained silent, both looking toward the house, until the sound subsided.

“Peter’s cough has worsened, I fear, since your return,” Flora said.He couldn’t disagree.“Did he cough so severely when you were in the West?”

“No.”

She sighed.He heard resignation and resolve in that exhalation.

“Tell me about Dakota Territory.”

He propped his elbows on his knees, still holding her hand between his.“It’s hard to describe, Flora.It’s like telling somebody who’s only seen roses about an oak tree.It’s raw and hard and open.There’s wind most all the time and a sky as big as the ocean.The mountains rise from the plains like the only two choices for the earth out there are to stay level or reach straight up.”

“It sounds...harsh.”

“It is.”

“You don’t sound as if that bothered you.”

“It didn’t.Not after I’d been there a while.”

She wrapped her fingers around his hand.“Why did you come back?”

He looked up, surprised.But maybe not as surprised as he would have expected to be.

“To tell you what I’d already written about Thomas.To bring Peter to you.To be sure you and all were okay.To come back to where I was a boy and became a man.To come home.”

“To come home,” she repeated.“To find your past or to find your future?”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

Flora slipped her hand from his and stood.“The past is gone, Nathaniel.It’s not even here for visiting.What’s left is the future.That’s what you need to be thinking of.”

(Notes: Ransom comes back, with Peter...Maggie greets him cautiously.She’d been growing silent again)

She looked at him, but said nothing for a long moment.When she parted her lips, his heart hitched.Then she pressed her lips tight, before she turned away.

“I’ll unpack your things,” she said.

She removed each item carefully, examining the few pieces of new apparel he’d acquired, then assessing the state of his familiar clothes, and deciding they weren’t laundered to her standards.

She reached into the bottom of the satchel, and felt a tightly wrapped swaddling of cloth.

Her hand shook slightly, like in the early days when she’d done too much washing in one day.But she made her fingers close around the cloth and draw it out.She unwrapped it quickly, not giving herself time to think— or feel.