Page 52 of Eleanor’s Earrings

“Has no one stopped him?”

“How?”

“I do not know. A pillow?”

Nathaniel laughed into his coffee.

They sat quietly for a while.

“What will Clover Creek be like?” he asked.

Eleanor pictured the maps, sketches, and descriptions Father had gathered. “There is water. Timber nearby. Open land for fields. Father believed a road would eventually pass close enough for trade.”

“And the house?”

“There is no house.”

“There will be.”

She smiled. “A large one. Eight sisters require space.”

“Your husbands may object to all living together.”

“Then we will choose better husbands.”

Nathaniel turned his cup between his hands. “You intend to marry?”

“I have not planned it.”

“You plan everything.”

“Exactly. Marriage has never fit.”

“Perhaps you have been planning around the wrong man.”

Her heart beat faster. “Perhaps there is no right one.”

“Perhaps.”

The word sounded as though he did not believe it.

Eleanor looked at him. “What home did you imagine?”

“Once?”

“Whenever you imagined one.”

“A farm. Abigail wanted apple trees. I wanted enough land that the nearest neighbor could not hear me complain about the apple trees.”

“You dislike apples?”

“I dislike pruning them.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“It becomes the same thing after twenty trees.”

She laughed.