“That sounds worse.”
He looked at her.
“Do you want anything done?”
Lydia thought.
“No.”
Gideon nodded.
“All right.”
Her head snapped up.
“All right?”
“Yes.”
“You don't think I should report him?”
“Do you?”
“I don't know.”
“Then when you know, tell me.”
Again.
Choice.
Lydia almost resented how powerful such a simple thing could feel.
February arrived brutally.
The pass closed beneath six feet of snow.
For seventeen days, no road connected the cabin to the settlement.
Gideon trapped near the ridge.
Lydia maintained the cabin.
They became a partnership almost without noticing.
He chopped.
She stored.
He hunted.
She preserved.
He repaired fences.
She repaired clothing.
She eventually repaired the mechanism on his grain mill after listening to it squeal for three days.
Gideon stared.
“You fixed that?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Factory.”
“You worked looms.”
“Machinery is machinery.”
He shook his head.
“I married an engineer.”
“No. You married a woman who dislikes annoying noises.”
That evening, the locked upstairs room bothered Lydia again.
She had never entered.
Never asked.
But Gideon sometimes stopped outside it.
Once she saw him place his hand on the knob without turning it.
Another time she heard him inside.
Only for minutes.
Then the door locked again.
Lydia waited.
The truth came during a blizzard.
Gideon returned from the stable soaked through.
Lydia helped remove his coat.
He was shaking.
Not from cold.
In his hand was a small carved horse.
Wooden.
One leg broken.
He stared at it.
Lydia asked:
“What is that?”
Gideon looked toward the locked room.
“My son's.”
Lydia stopped.
“You had a son?”
He sat heavily.
“Thomas.”
She sat opposite.
“How old?”
“Five.”
The fire cracked.
Lydia's chest tightened.
“And his mother?”
“Mary.”
He looked toward the hearth.
“We married in '69.”
Thirteen years earlier.
Lydia waited.
“Thomas was born two years later.”
His voice became distant.
“The winter of '76, Mary got fever.”
Lydia understood before he finished.
“She died?”
“Yes.”
Gideon turned the wooden horse in his hands.
“Thomas followed three weeks later.”
Lydia closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Gideon nodded.
“That's the room.”
“Theirs?”
“His.”
“Why keep it locked?”
“Didn't know what else to do.”
Lydia looked at the wooden horse.
The leg had broken recently.
“You were in there today.”
“Roof leaked. Water got through the window frame.”
“Gideon.”
He looked at her.
“You can leave it locked.”
His expression tightened.
“Everyone tells grieving people to move on.”
“I didn't.”
“No.”
“Because rooms aren't the problem.”
He watched her.
“What is?”
“Thinking opening a door means betraying the people behind it.”
Gideon's eyes narrowed slightly.
Lydia reached across the table.
“Mary was your wife.”
“Yes.”
“Thomas was your son.”
“Yes.”
“Nothing we become changes that.”
He looked down.
Lydia understood something else then.
His restraint was not only kindness.
Gideon was afraid too.
Not of her body.
Of attachment.
Of love becoming another room he might someday lock.
She squeezed his hand.
“You don't have to open it for me.”
He looked toward the stairs.
“Maybe for me.”
The next morning, Gideon unlocked the room.
Lydia did not follow.
He remained inside for an hour.
Then called her name.
The room was small.
A child's bed.
Wooden toys.
A faded blue coat hanging from a peg.
Dust.
A portrait of a young woman holding a dark-haired boy.
Lydia entered slowly.
Gideon stood by the window.
She looked at the portrait.
“Mary?”
“Yes.”
“She was beautiful.”
“Yes.”
No jealousy.
No competition.
Just truth.
Lydia picked up the wooden horse.
“Let me repair it.”
Gideon looked at her.
“You can?”
“Yes.”
The leg took twenty minutes.
Gideon watched.
When she finished, Lydia placed the horse where she found it.
She did not rearrange anything.
That afternoon Gideon left the door open.
Spring was still weeks away when the letter arrived.
A rider from settlement brought it because the lower trail had finally become passable.
The envelope bore Philadelphia markings.
Lydia's stomach dropped.
She recognized the handwriting.
Alton Briggs.
Gideon watched her.
“What is it?”
She opened the letter.
Read.
Then sat.
Briggs accused her of stealing $412 from factory payroll accounts during the week she left Philadelphia.
Lydia stared at the page.
“What?”
Gideon held out a hand.
She gave him the letter.
He read slowly.
His face hardened.
Briggs claimed an internal audit discovered manipulated production ledgers tied to Lydia's bookkeeping station.
He stated the company had notified authorities.
Then came the final paragraph.
If Lydia returned voluntarily and signed an acknowledgment of debt, the owners might agree not to pursue criminal charges.
Gideon folded the letter.
“Did you take it?”
Lydia stared at him.
“No.”
“Good.”
She flinched.
Gideon frowned.
“What?”
“You asked.”
“Of course I asked.”
“You didn't say you knew I didn't.”
“No.”
Lydia's chest tightened.
Something old stirred.
“You don't believe me.”
“I didn't say that.”
“You had to ask.”
“Yes.”
She stood.
Gideon remained seated.
“Lydia.”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
She did.
“Believing you are capable of telling me the truth means I ask you, not answer for you.”
Her anger faltered.
Gideon continued.
“If I decide innocence because I love you, I am doing the same thing as a man deciding guilt because he dislikes you.”
She stared.
“I believe your answer.”
Lydia sat again.
The distinction hurt.
Then settled into something solid.
“What do we do?”
“What do you want to do?”
She almost laughed.
“Of course.”
“What?”
“You did it again.”
“Asked you?”
“Yes.”
Gideon shrugged.
“I am stubborn.”
Lydia looked at the letter.
“I want to know where the number came from.”
“Then we find out.”
She still had records.
Not money records.
Production ledgers.
Before leaving Philadelphia, Lydia had copied factory output numbers into personal notebooks because Briggs frequently altered work quotas and blamed workers for shortages.
She had carried two books west accidentally.
They opened them at the table.
Columns.
Weekly output.
Silk received.
Silk woven.
Damaged rolls.
Waste.
Labor deductions.
Lydia read.
Then stopped.
“What?”
Gideon leaned closer.
She pointed.
“Briggs reported waste twice.”
“I don't understand.”
“Look.”
She moved one ledger beside the accusation.
“Factory issued six hundred pounds of raw silk this week.”
“Yes.”
“Finished production used five hundred twenty.”