She dried her hands on a kitchen towel and put her arm around him, helping him to the bedroom, where she undressed him and put him into bed. She sat on the edge, smoothing the hair away from his pale forehead. He’d had a stroke. His body was worn out. If she were to heal him now, there’d be another one tomorrow.

“There’s nothing I can do, Harry.”

His gaze wandered over the room, avoiding her face.

“We’ve had a good life together, you know.”

The breath caught in his throat. He closed his eyes, resting for a moment. Then he looked up at her, moistness collecting in the tanned wrinkles around his eyes. “How can you say that, Fern?” The words were slurred, his tongue thick.

“Because I’ve spent my life with the two people I love. That’s all.”

“It’s been hard. I’ve been . . .”

“It’s not been easy. But then . . . that’s how it is, sometimes.”

“You’ve been a good wife.” He reached for her hand and pressed it to him.

“Don’t be afraid, Harry.”

She reached down and kissed him slowly, tenderly, on the cheek. He closed his eyes and died.

She pulled the covers up to his chin, smoothing the quilt that had been his parents’, that had been on this bed when he was born. The empty ache inside her burned like a fire, from the pit of her stomach up through her throat. The tears were lumped behind her eyes, but they wouldn’t come. She wandered around the room for a moment, hanging up his work clothes, touching his things, then she went back to the kitchen to finish the breakfast dishes.

Martha, sensing a difference in the atmosphere of the house, came out of her room and sat quietly at the kitchen table, waiting. Fern poured a cup of coffee and sat down next to her, taking her hand. Martha’s hand was not young, and hers looked like a claw on top of it. She sipped.

“Your father died.”

Martha nodded.

“I loved him very much.”

Martha nodded again. Suddenly the flow of tears burst forth and Fern sobbed, her head on her arms, shaking uncontrollably. She cried for all the lost good times of their lives, for the retirement she had hoped to have. She cried for the shattered dreams they had once shared, of selling the farm and moving away, of having a houseful of children, of being a close family, full of joy and laughter and fun. And she cried for Harry, a worn-out man, unhappy with himself, bitter and mean in his way, so afraid, so afraid.