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“Because you owed me money?” She tucked her head under his chin.

He pinched her side. “Fiend.” A kiss to her temple. “I don’t think you know, Maggie, what you mean to me.”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

Theo’s hand was in her hair, and his mind was crumbling into dust. It was seeping out of his ears, surely, pooling into ashy piles around his feet. “I’m miserable,” he managed, wretched. “I’m going mad.”

“Why?” Maggie’s voice was awed, as if she didn’t know. She would hate it; she always hated being read so openly. He decided to indulge her; he decided to always indulge her, when he could.

“I missed you so much.” He kissed her forehead. “Three days without seeing you and I missed your face and your indignant sniffs.” Another kiss. “I missed your silly brothers and how much they love Emmy.”

Maggie huffed. “They spoil her.” This was true; Tom had taken to buying extra buns at Stinson’s to sneak to the baby, who delighted in plucking out the raisins and pitching them at Bridgers.

“I miss you all the time. I miss you right now and you’re here.” Theo was going mad. Might as well go all the way. “Marry me.”

Maggie froze in his arms. “What?”

“Marry me. Please,” he added. Politeness never hurt.

“Why?”

“You need convincing?” Theo pressed his cheek to the top of her head. “Shall I list off my attributes?”

“Why do you want to marry me?” He expected her to pull away, but she snuggled in closer to him, tightening her arms around his waist.

“Because I’m the best version of myself around you. Because you love my daughter. And because I want to spend my life making you happy.”

Theo was slightly off set by the volume of Maggie’s sudden crying. “You can say no,” he said, desperately. “It’s all right if you do.”

“Of course I’ll marry you, you fucking idiot.”

It wasn’t the most eloquent of proposal acceptances, but it was terribly Maggie. “I love you,” he muttered into her hair. “I love you.”

“I know,” she hiccupped. “I know now.”

Being nothing if not pragmatic, they agreed that there was no point in delaying the inevitable. A few weeks later, the wedding was small and simple, just a smattering of people in an orchard bursting with fruit and Reverend Monet officiating. Lou served as Maggie’s attendant, and Theo’s brothers were his best men, with Bridgers butting in, his yellow velvet waistcoat practically serving as another member of the wedding party. Emmy had a permanent spot on Lou’s hip, and Stinson had given the party a dramatically reduced rate on his apple caramel hand pies (Bridgers, he claimed, had been his best customer, which Bridgers refused to comment on, stuffing a hand pie into his mouth instead). All in all, it was an unremarkable event, except that Maggie had entered the orchard Magdalene Cruthers, Beloved Sister, and left Magdalene Barrow, Beloved Sister, Wife, and Stepmother. Her gown was a plain white dress with no train—“I love you like my own bones, dear,” Pearl had said, “but we ain’t royalty.”—and her veil short and simple. Theo had lifted it over her face, all smiles and mussed hair and one small, secret dimple, and leaned in to kiss her after they’d made their promises.

“This reminds me,” Bridgers said, tearily, recklessly, in Tom’s arms, “of how we met Maggie.”

Tom patted his lover’s shoulder. “We didn’t meet at a wedding,” he said. Bridgers responded with more sobs.

The party had petered out, with guests packing extra food into pails to take home and clearing the humble tables of their adornments, and Maggie stood in front of a headstone in the graveyard next to the church.

Sarah Elizabeth Barrow

1859 – 1887

Beloved Wife & Mother

The Lord Is My Shepherd

Maggie swallowed, gripping her bouquet of autumn wildflowers. “Hello,” she said quietly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I want you to know.” She paused, considering. A breeze ruffled her bouquet. “I want you to know that I hope you’d like me. I know I would have liked you, from what everyone has told me. And I certainly love your daughter.” She smiled. “She’s a darling. A terror, but a darling. And I so look forward to seeing her grow up.” She ignored the pressure behind her eyes. “I promise to take care of her. And Theo. I promise you, Sarah.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “And we will honor you. Thank you for them. I wish you could be here to see them.”

Maggie set her wedding bouquet on Sarah’s grave, pressing her fingers to the headstone.

“Mags!” Theo called from the road. “Bridgers has a dinner planned! We’d best get there before the sandwiches get cold!”

Maggie shook her head, sighing. She nodded to the grave once more, then picked up her skirts and trotted towards her husband, her brothers, her daughter. Towards her future.