“Lord, Send Someone to Fix This Roof Before Snow,” She Whispered... Not Knowing He Was Behind Her
Chapter 12
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Toward morning, he went out in his shirt sleeves to look: the north slope lay under a clean white sheet, thick and even from eaves to ridge, with no black patch showing anywhere.At 7:00, she opened the cabin door. She stood in the doorway in a clean apron with her hair pinned up, looking as if she had been startled by the sound of her own house. Then she looked at him standing in the yard with the snow on his hat."The terms say the porch," said Willa."Yes, ma'am. The terms did not say it would snow."She stepped back from the door. "Come in, Mr. Colton. Wipe your boots."It was a small room, swept to the boards, with seven buckets lined up against the wall. Every one was dry. She set a plate in front of him and one in front of herself, and she stood a moment with her hands on the back of her chair. Then she bowed her head."Lord," she said, "I asked you for someone to fix this roof. I don't know what you sent, or whether you sent anyone. I know a man stopped at my gate in the sleet, and I know he held a ladder when I couldn't. I know it held." Her voice caught, and she waited. "Thank you for the roof. Thank you for the hands. Thank you for the ladder. Thank you for my father, who cut the wood. Amen.""Amen," said Ezra.They ate bread and fried apples while the stove ticked and the snowlight came white through the window."You'll want to get to Loveland," she said at last."The hay can keep another day. The cider can't."She nodded. "Take your half. I filled eight barrels. You can have four, and I'll thank you not to haggle."He looked at her over the rim of the cup. Neither of them smiled, and both of them very nearly did."In the spring," said Ezra, "when the first thaw's through, I'd like to see how the north slope takes it.""I'd like that."That was all. He did not take her hand, and she did not offer it.She stood under the carved lintel while he harnessed the mules and loaded four barrels into the wagon bed. The snow was ankle-deep and still falling.At the gate, he stopped. The twist of paper still hung on the post where she had tied it a week ago, with his dime inside. He left it where it was.When he looked back, she was still on the porch. She had taken off her glove, and she had put her bare hand flat against the wood of the doorframe beneath the lintel, the way one might lay a hand on the shoulder of someone who had come a long way.Above her, the new roof lay white and whole and quiet under the falling snow, and the words her father had cut over the door were wearing a small, clean cap of white.