Our home is large. 'Plenty of room for everyone,' Pa always says with a smile as he welcomes in his latest stray. That's where Hoss gets it, you know: his habit of always bringing home some injured creature in need of rehabilitation; it's a mirror of our Pa, just with furry creatures instead of two-legged ones.
Pa doesn't know that I understand how much too large this place is.
Marie and I were alike in that we were dreamers, always looking ahead to the future to see what possibilities awaited us there. And so sometimes on those dismal nights after a herd had stampeded and run us nearly into the ground or we'd had to run off squatters for the hundredth time, she and I would stay up far too late talking of plans for the wonderful home we'd all build some day, when Hoss and Joe were strong enough to help us and Pa I weren't so busy trying to build a ranch.
We even started to sketch out an outline of the home shortly before she died.
Pa was there that first night of drafting, and he and Marie got so carried away in excited arguing that I just sat back and watched them and smiled at their love and at their shared secret that I'd observed enough to guess.
When I returned from college back east, and it was actually time to finally build that home we talked about all those years ago, Pa was surprised to see me pull out those sketches I'd holed away while he was buried deep in grief.
We didn't change much, not even erasing the extra bedroom that was meant to house the secret I wasn't meant to know. Joe and Hoss never quite understood why there was a guest room upstairs.