What a beautiful family Martin has made of us, despite himself.

• • •

For a full week I allow myself to enjoy the serenity of the Loralei and the treasure of having Kat there and knowing that it is the beginning of her always being with me. Candace spends as much time outside as the weather will allow, and even though the intense Tucson heat is no longer aiding to keep her tuberculosis at bay, she seems rejuvenated in her spirit if not in her body. I think she’s happy for the first time in years.

We spend many of our afternoons out under the peach tree, sitting on a blanket and listening to her tell us stories from her childhood, a pastime I encourage so that Kat will always feel a connection to her first mother.

I find I very much enjoy helping Belinda run the inn. With Sarah still waking at nights to nurse, I quickly settle in to being in charge of making breakfast for us and any inn guests. Belinda also hands over all the laundry duties to me when I ask her to. I like doing the washing. It reminds me of what is possible to clean away with just water, soap, and effort.

Elliot is at the inn nearly every day; it’s plain to see how very much he loves Belinda, and it is also clear that Belinda’s perspective of what romantic love looks like is also changing. Time will ease the distress of the mistake she made in choosing Martin over Elliot, I am sure. When it does, Elliot will be there.

When I have a moment alone with Elliot I ask him what he has done about the mine. He tells me the earthquake caved in the entrance. There may be gold to be had yet inside, but getting to it now will be near impossible without immense labor and probably dynamite.

“No one will be going back inside for a long time, if at all, but I set out a sign to remind any passersby that it is private property,” he tells me. “Belinda has not been out there, and it is far enough away on the property that she doesn’t need to see it. That mine has brought her nothing but heartache.”

I ask Elliot if he knows how Martin was able to mine the gold without Belinda knowing, and he answers that he suspects Martin had enlisted a couple of paid laborers to dig it out. Two Chinese men dressed in filthy clothes had been seen multiple times in Martin’s company in San Mateo. Elliot had been asked by a longtime friend of Belinda’s father if he knew who those Chinese men were who’d been with Belinda’s new husband.

“I never saw the two men myself,” Elliot says. “And no one has seen them lately.”

I walk out to the mine’s entrance after this conversation to see its destruction for myself. There is no longer an opening to the cave. Instead, there is an immense pile of boulders and a no trespassing sign. I am very glad the mine sits on the farthest edge of Belinda’s property, such that none of us need ever stand again where I am standing.