"I keep making lists," Clara said.
Her voice was quieter than usual.
"I've noticed."
"About the teaching position."
She turned the coffee cup in her hands.
"Pros and cons. What it would mean for the boys. Stability. Community. The school in Milfield has 30 students."
She stopped.
"I've made the list four times, and it comes out differently each time."
"How?"
"The practical side always points the same direction."
She turned from the window.
"But the other side keeps..."
She stopped again.
Gideon waited.
"Noah called you Gid yesterday," she said. "Did you hear that?"
He had heard it.
The boy had been asking him something about the horses.
Had said, "Gid, can we...?"
Then caught himself and gone red and said, "Mr. Voss."
Gideon had said, "Either one's fine," and moved on because making a thing of it seemed like the wrong call.
"I heard it," he said.
Clara looked at him steadily.
"He's never called anyone anything like that. Anyone other than his father."
Gideon held her gaze.
"I don't know what to do with that information," she said. "I don't know whether to be scared of it or..."
She pressed her lips together.
Then, with the effort of someone saying something they'd been not saying:
"I don't know what we're doing, Gideon. And I need to know because I can manage uncertainty for myself, but I cannot, I will not, let those boys build something on ground that's going to shift."
The fire cracked.
"Then let's figure out what we're doing," he said.
"That's not an answer."
"I know."
He looked at her across the kitchen.
"I don't have the full answer yet. But I know what I want. And I think you know what you want. And I think we've both been waiting for the other person to say it first because it's..."
He stopped.
Put it plainly.
"It's terrifying."
Clara looked at him for a long moment.
Then something in her face changed.
Not softened exactly.
Clara Whitmore did not soften in any way that suggested weakness.
But opened slightly.
The way a door opens when the wind shifts and the pressure on both sides finally equalizes.
"Yes," she said. "It is."
Neither of them said the rest of it that night.
They weren't ready for the rest of it.
Not fully.