"Man, my arms," Ellie complained as they rode back. "They feel like they're going to fall off."
Joel chuckled. "Builds muscle, work like this."
"I thought I already had muscles. How can you even have muscles there?" She dropped the reins and guided the bay with her legs, feeling the backs of her arms gingerly with her hands. The sun was setting, and the plant's lights above the dam were beginning to flicker on one by one.
"Hey look. Lights." Ellie pointed. "I wonder how much the power is up by."
"I don't know. Ask Tommy."
"I sure hope Maria's made something for dinner..." Ellie sighed happily. "That would be amazing."
They handed their horses off to Earl, who was off-duty, and Joel asked, "Tommy around?"
"Him and Houser went home about half an hour ago," Earl returned over his shoulder.
"Good," Joel murmured. "They've been getting' up before the sun."
Ellie stretched stiffly, having not been in the saddle for some months, and winced at the tender pull of her ligaments and tendons. Then she caught sight of the greyish heap of fur in the shadow of the stables, and hurried over through the snow.
"Buckley," she crooned, scratching the dog behind the ears, and he wagged his tail appreciatively. "Having a good day?"
"Worthless, as ever," Earl chuckled, leading the horses by her. "He's been hiding out there all day, out of the wind."
"I don't blame him," Ellie proclaimed. "If I was a dog, I'd nap all the time. Either that or explore."
"Go on, then, Joel thinks you're following him," Earl chuckled, gesturing to the man whose long strides were already bearing him toward Tommy and Maria's house.
"He always thinks that," Ellie whispered to the dog, giving him a final pat. "Bye, buddy. See you soon." And she jogged to catch up with Joel, her muscles protesting every step of the way.
"Hey," she gasped, coming up to his side. "Thanks for letting me come with you."
"No problem. Thanks for your help, kiddo." Joel draped his arm around her, and Ellie felt herself stiffen.
"Uh." She grasped his wrist and gently extricated herself. "Not to offend you or anything, but I'm not really into hugging."
"Hm." Joel regarded her curiously. "That new?"
Ellie shook her head. "No. Just... a combination of things." She twisted her hands. "Okay. New-ish."
"I see."
They mounted the steps to the porch, and Ellie took them two at a time to reach the top before Joel, looking down at him.
"Ellie?"
"I kinda doubt you see." She bobbed her head. "But thanks anyway."
Maria was heard calling from within. "Joel? Ellie?"
"Yeah!" Ellie vociferated, catching a whiff of something hot and tasty. "Is that dinner? Oh, boy!" She sprinted inside, leaving Joel to scratch his head and follow her at a more staid pace. Complicated little thing.
That night, basking in the light of the lamps on the walls which remained illuminated long after ten o'clock, Tommy and Joel mumbling over their chess game, and Ellie with a roll of duct tape patching her backpack, Maria came and sat next to the girl.
"So, did you tell her?" she asked Tommy, who looked up.
"Check. Hm?" He lifted his eyebrows at his wife. Maria rolled her eyes.
"Ellie. Did you or Joel tell her about the other group coming?"
"I did," Joel replied, as simultaneously Tommy shook his head.
"What do you think?" Maria asked Ellie. "Some new people to meet?"
Something perverse in Ellie decided to play dumb. "Yeah. That'll be cool. Maybe I'll make a friend who likes comics too."
Tommy and Maria exchanged a look. Joel cleared his throat.
"Ellie, you know what Maria means."
"Really?" She raised her eyebrows. "I thought she just meant –"
"Leave the girl alone," Tommy chuckled, giving her a wink. "Maybe there'll be some comic-book-lovin' boy in the lot."
"You all are worse than Pride and Prejudice," Ellie muttered. Joel snorted. "You know!" she exclaimed. "All trying to get everybody to fall in love. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was an amazing book, but in real life it's really weird."
"Where'd you even get that book?" Joel asked. Maria smirked.
"I gave it to her. Smuggled from a trip through the library at the university when I was traveling with Dad. Kept it all these years, because I loved it. I thought I'd give it to Ellie."
"It was awesome..." Ellie groaned in appreciation. "Especially the part where Mr. Collins goes and marries that other girl! I was like, what the heck?" She fell back onto the floor in a fit of laughing. "Ohhh." Ellie wiped her eyes and sat up, resuming her work on her backpack. "So funny."
Maria regarded the girl fondly. "That your favorite part?"
"Totally." Ellie nodded enthusiastically. "Either that or the part where they find out that one guy was like totally into drinking and girls, and they all thought he was really good and stuff."
Joel was resisting the urge to smile, and not doing a very good job.
"Hey, what about that part where Mr. What's-'is-name finally asks the girl to marry him?" Tommy inquired. "That's the part Maria always talked about. Said it was so sweet and all that I got a hold of the book and tried to remember some of the words when I asked her to marry me." Joel snorted. "Hey." Tommy glared. "She accepted." He lifted his hands as if to proclaim his victory.
Ellie cocked her head. "Eh. It was okay. I liked it better when her friend was all like 'marriage is luck' and all that."
"Do you believe that?" Maria queried.
"Psh. No." Ellie bit off the tape and smoothed the end down with her fingers. She stopped short and looked around the quiet room to see all the adults regarding her with various expressions. "What? You guys got all weird." She pushed herself back against the sagging sofa and drew her knees up to her chest. "What are you staring at?"
"Nothing," Maria said, unfolding a stack of faded, water-crinkled paper. "I'm going to show you how to make an envelope."
"Whoah, cool, what is this?" Ellie exclaimed, peering at the faded paper. "It's an atlas. We might need this."
"Not unless we're ever lost in Oregon, and I'm pretty sure we'll get better use out of it this way," Maria smiled. Another hour passed in their quiet pastimes, and Maria was first to retire, leaving Ellie licking and tearing the folded paper. After Tommy had beaten Joel at last, amidst Joel's complaining that he took advantage of the fact that he had the first move as white, Tommy bade everyone goodnight and went to indulge in the luxury of a shower before bed. Joel stood to his feet.
"Arms doing alright?"
"So far," Ellie nodded, biting her lip as she squinted and examined a faulty envelope. She swore under her breath. "Not again."
"Go to bed soon, baby," he murmured, bestowing a kiss on top of her head. "And don't let any of this stuff bug you."
Ellie didn't look up, but said softly, "Then why did you tell me in the first place?"
Joel crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the ground for a moment. "For your good."
"My what?" Ellie shut her eyes in exasperation. "I hate to admit how messed up this has made me."
"Mind if I tell you a story?" Joel said at length, taking a seat on the sofa. Ellie shook her head and Joel took a deep breath.
"Now, I haven't told this to anybody, and nobody knows about it firsthand except Tommy. So, you know about Sarah."
Ellie pivoted on the floor so she could see Joel's face and Joel couldn't help but wish she hadn't done that. Now he was stuck – if he decided to back out, she would read him like an open book.
"Yeah. Maria told me about her."
"Alright. So, she was about your age. Well, about the age you were when I first met you." He didn't need to say when. What had happened when she was Ellie's age. "She was really in to weird music, weird movies, weird clothes..." He chuckled. "She was a weird kid. Kinda like you." Ellie nodded.
"I'll bet I would have liked her."
"Yeah. So, I had her when I wasn't much older'n you are right now. Her mother – her mother was a real pretty thing. And I was young and stupid, and she wasn't much better, but I loved her. We met in school. It was a rough year for me and Tommy, our dad had shot himself over the summer, Mother wasn't doin' so well herself. She never was a real strong person, physically, that is. I had to get another job to help pay for the rent, and through it all, there was this new girl from some school in the far northwest. Her hair was blonde, her eyes were blue, and she liked music."
Ellie was listening raptly, in her eyes the reflected light of the lanterns. Joel found it easier to look away as he talked.
"I brought my guitar to school one day, and played it during lunch, since we didn't have money, and I usually just ate somethin' when I got home. Everybody else'd eat, or listen for a while, but she came over and sat real close at my feet, like you are now," he gestured, "and listened the whole darn time. Didn't even eat lunch, and after I'd finished playin' she asked if I knew some song or another."
"What was it?" Ellie blurted out. Joel rubbed a hand over his beard.
"I don't remember."
"I bet you do."
There was a long pause. "It was called 'House of the Rising Sun'."
"How does it go?"
"Now, I ain't gonna sing it for you, the point is I knew it and I played it and she sang it for me. She sang real nice, she had a good voice. When we finished there wasn't nobody else in the whole room, and we figured we were goin' to be late for class. So we just skipped out for the rest of the day, and that's how it all started."
"How'd it all end?"
"Sarah." Joel took a deep breath. "Her family was just about ready to shoot me. I told 'em I'd do right by her, and marry her if they'd let me, and they said I'd better do just that, or they'd never speak to either of us. So, we got married there, in our last year of high school."
Ellie let out a low whistle. "Were you scared?"
"Like heck. I was just a kid, and there I was, supposed to be takin' care of my Mother and Tommy, and here I'd gone and got a wife and a kid in the space of a year. She moved in with me at home, and that's where Sarah was born. I graduated that spring, but she didn't, on account of takin' care of the baby."
There was a long pause, and Ellie asked in a quiet voice, "What happened to her?"
"We separated when Sarah was five. Things weren't workin' out."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Joel shut his eyes. "She wanted to live her life, go to college... Listen, that ain't the point of that story. The point of that story is that love don't happen when we want it and how we want it. It happens, and I'm not sayin' if it's right or wrong, or easy or good, or nothin'. Just sayin' that's how it is. So don't worry about it. Things'll work out."
"Yeah. People always say that," Ellie murmured. Joel looked her in the eye.
"Hey. Since when do people always say that?"
"Never mind," she murmured, burying her chin in her arms. "Thanks for telling me about Sarah's mom."
The more Ellie thought about it, the more she thought of this story as a trust. Joel didn't say so, but the sheer fact he had confided in her proved that she now had something of him that she was meant to repay. And though she didn't know when, or why, or even how, she fully intended to pay him back. That was when the resolve began, and when it all began to be okay in her mind. It had to be only a matter of time before everything was okay around her as well. It had to be.