Sunnyside was quiet when I walked my bicycle through the gates. The afternoon was getting on; it was dusky and the Scriptorium was dark. Everyone had gone home. I could see Lizzie through the kitchen window, and I watched her for a while. She moved back and forth between the range and the table, no doubt preparing dinner for the Murrays. Once, when I was little, she told me she didn’t much like cooking.

“What do you like?” I’d asked.

“I like sewing and I like looking after you, Essymay.”

I was shivering. I leaned the bicycle against the ash and walked towards the kitchen.

Inside, I stood on the threshold, the door closed behind me, the heat of the range warming my face. But the shivering didn’t stop.

Lizzie looked at me. Her hand hovered at her chest. She had questions she didn’t ask.

The shivering got worse, and she was there. Her thick arms around me, guiding me to a chair. She put a cup in my hands; it was almost too hot, but not quite. She told me to drink. I drank.

“I couldn’t have done it,” I said, looking up into her face. She held me against her belly and stroked my hair.

When she spoke, she was slow and careful, as if I were a stray cat she was afraid would run off before it could be helped. “He seemed like a nice enough man, that Bill. You could tell him,” she said.

She held me a little tighter as she said it, and I didn’t move away. I’d thought about it. I’d imagined it. In my heart I was certain that Bill would do the right thing if he knew. That Tilda would make sure of it. I spoke as slowly and carefully as Lizzie just had.

“I don’t love him, though. And I don’t want to be married.”

She stiffened slightly, and I felt her take a breath. Then she pulled a chair close to mine and sat opposite me, our hands clasped.

“Every woman wants to be married, Essymay.”

“If that’s true, then why isn’t Ditte married, or her sister? Why not Elsie or Rosfrith or Eleanor Bradley? Why not you?”

“Not all women get the chance. And some…well, some are just brought up with too many books and too many ideas, and they can’t settle to it.”

“I don’t think I could settle to it, Lizzie.”

“You’d get used to it.”

“But I don’t want to get used to it.”

“What do you want?”