Rosalie cooked.
Washed.
Mended clothing.
Cleaned the house.
Their conversations existed almost entirely in pencil.
Storm coming.
Need flour.
North
fence is broken.
Your coat is torn.
I know.
You should replace it.
Too expensive.
We own three hundred cattle.
They’re not wearing the coat.
Rosalie laughed the first time she read that.
Gideon watched her face.
He couldn’t hear her laugh.
But he could see it.
Something softened around his eyes.
Their communication became easier.
She learned his gestures.
He learned hers.
Sometimes he would enter the kitchen and find her humming.
He couldn’t hear the tune.
But he would smile anyway.
And Rosalie slowly realized something astonishing.
She wasn’t afraid of him.
She had expected the opposite.
Instead, she found herself feeling safe.
One evening, Gideon returned from the barn with blood on his sleeve.
Rosalie rushed toward him.
