Louise pulled the kitchen stool to her and put her foot on it. She bunched her dress up to her thigh and bent down to tighten her shoelaces. She had to think. Mr. Bradlock played with the change in his pockets. She could see the squint of his watching so she pulled her dress back down.

“Who is going to marry you, Louise?” He had taken two quarters from his pocket and was rasping them together. She pulled the hair back from her face and stepped back from the stool. She dabbed at the corners of her mouth. He dropped his change and slapped his thigh.

“No one would have you,” he said. The room fell to silence.

“I’m going to get married,” she said again. He grinned to himself. He wiggled a little bit in his suit jacket and Louise felt a sickness crawl her chest. This old man in his baggy-butt trousers, his belly heavy with food even at four in the morning, this man older than her father was telling her no one wanted to marry her. He leaned up against the door frame and looked at his keys.

“I’m marrying Baptiste Yellow Knife,” she said, and the words gripped her, because she realized it was true. She would marry Baptiste Yellow Knife.

Mr. Bradlock placed his hand over his belt buckle and coughed. “Louise,” he said, “I’ve tried to save you.” He looked at the toes of his shoes and then out the window. He tugged his trousers up too high over his waist. He wouldn’t look at her. “Not worth the time,” he said. His face was white welted as if he had been cuffed by a hard fist. She had disappointed him. As he was leaving he stumbled on the doorjamb and pulled a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and waved it. He had surrendered to her.

Louise sat down and waited for her sister and her grandmother. Mr. Bradlock had not questioned her answer, had not pressed her any further to see if she was lying to him. He had accepted her answer with a sure and certain resignation, as if the thought of marrying Baptiste was too terrible to lie about. And now the idea of her marriage to Baptiste hovered around her. She would wait to tell her grandmother. She had yet to tell Baptiste.

When she entered the house, her grandmother did not ask Louise what happened. “You’re staying,” was all she said, and Louise nodded and smiled. Her sister came up behind her and whispered, “I thought you were a goner.”

“Maybe so,” Louise answered her.