Emaline helped Eli’s girls in the kitchen, preparing endless pitchers of lemonade and platters of baked potatoes, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, peas, snap beans, carrots. She had also baked a half dozen pies and made a cake for the newlyweds. When everyone had finished eating, she sat by the fire next to Bobby, feeling that she had at last found a place where she belonged, where she was surrounded by people who cared for her, where life was something other than a pitched battle to survive. As happy as she was for Juanita, Emaline envied her all this, the peace of it, the absence of strife, the plain affection in which she and Eli held each other.

When the games were over and they had all eaten their fill, they sat around watching the fireflies wink as the night settled in. Zeke Ketcham played his guitar, Leo and Bobby sang a couple of Eli’s favorite songs, Juanita sang an old Mexican tune. Two Spuds and Jenny Hoot Owl sat holding hands. In the gathering darkness, Emaline watched Eli with Juanita. They were newlyweds, but they had been together for a good long time now and there was a warmth between them that she had rarely felt with Jake. Eli and Juanita treated each other with such tenderness that it seemed to spread to everyone around them.

Emaline could not imagine a way that her life with Jake would ever be anything like this. If she went back to him, there would always be arguments and explosions, hard times caused by his fecklessness, the absence of trust. More than anything, she sensed that Juanita and Eli trusted each other. Each knew the other would do the right thing in difficult situations.

The morning after the wedding, Eli and Juanita left early to take the train to Seattle. They were going to visit Eli’s youngest daughter from his first marriage, Emaline’s aunt Kate, and they were going to see the Pacific Ocean, leaving Emaline to run the house in their absence. Emaline had very little to do while they were gone. The girls had their routines, the house seemed to run itself. She read, she went out riding with Ben and Bobby, she thought. It took time, but when Eli and Juanita returned in mid-August, Emaline knew what she had to do.

She explained it to Juanita as well as she could. She had decided to go back and try it with Jake one more time. She couldn’t bear it any longer, the constant worry over the farm. They might lose it anyway but she did not want to lose it without a fight. It was hard to separate Jake from the farm but in her mind they were separate. She had to try to save the farm.