Exhausting. “Not for a single second,” I said.
And it was the truest thing I’d ever spoken. We got married in autumn under the giant cottonwood tree by the creek.
The whole town came.
Martha wore a simple cream dress she’d sewn herself. When the preacher asked for rings, Thomas stepped forward and handed me Anna’s ring, which I’d resized for Martha. “I, Caleb,” I said, voice thick, “take you, Martha.
And Thomas.
And Clara. And Lucy.
And Emma. And Samuel.
I take you all to be my family.
To protect and to hold. As long as there is breath in my lungs.”
I kissed her. And as our lips touched, I felt the final ghost of my past drift away.
Epilogue
Ten years later, the ranch has doubled in size.
Thomas is the foreman, married to a schoolteacher. Clara’s paintings hang in Denver galleries.
The twins run the local 4-H club. Samuel, now sixteen, wants to be a vet.
I’m older now.
My knee aches when it rains. My hair is more grey than brown. Yesterday, I sat on the porch swing with Martha, watching the sunset.
“You’re thinking again,” she said.
“Just remembering the day you showed up. The day I thought was the worst day of my life.”
She laughed.
“You were so grumpy.”
“I was scared of caring.”
“And now?”
I looked at the tire swing I’d hung for my grandchildren. “Now I know the truth.
Family isn’t blood.
It’s not something you’re born into. Family is a choice. It’s the people you choose to bleed for.
The people you choose to let in when you want to shut the world out.”
I squeezed her hand.
“And I thank God every day that I opened that gate.”
The sun vanished behind the peaks. The first star appeared.
My name is Caleb Stone. I am a husband.
I am a father.
And I am the richest man in the world. THE END
