“So you’ll stay?” she whispered.
“Ella, I’m only a poor stand-in,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t take your husband’s place. And I can’t take Andy’s place either. He did too much for me. It’s not right to step into his life and take up his role in your family, like he never existed at all.”
“My dad called you Andy,” she remembered out loud.
Dalton nodded, looking miserable.
“He was half asleep,” Ella said. “But it was telling.”
“It felt like a sign,” Dalton said, nodding.
“Oh, it is,” Ella told him. “But not in the way you think. It’s a sign that you mean something to us. Only one other person ever made my dad feel that way.”
“And he’s gone,” Dalton said. “He wouldn’t want me here sleeping in his bed.”
Ella frowned, uncertain if what she was about to do was right, but unable to think of a better way to explain.
“Come back inside,” she said. “I need to show you something. And if you still don’t want to stay after you see it, then I’ll let you go.”
He didn’t answer right away, and she held her breath, praying for him to open his heart to her one last time.
“Fine,” he said after a moment, striding for the door with Ella still in his arms.
She braced herself for him to put her down, but he pushed the front door open and turned to ease them through without missing a beat.
“Where?” he asked her softly.
“In my room,” she told him.
He started carrying her up the stairs before she could decide how she felt about inviting him into her bedroom.
It’s just for a minute, and it’s really important.
But when he reached her door, he set her down at last and made no move to come in.
“First, take those socks off,” he told her firmly. “And put on some slippers. I’ll be waiting downstairs.”
“You won’t go?” she heard herself ask.
“Not until you’ve shown me what you want me to see. You have my word,” he said. “But you’re not going to change my mind about this, Ella.”
He was a man who kept promises, so she slipped into her room to do as he asked, trusting that he would be downstairs when she got there.
She closed the door behind her, then peeled off her snow-encrusted socks and placed them on the radiator by the window. They would make a puddle on the floor, but that didn’t matter now, nothing did except convincing Dalton to stay.
Dutifully, she pulled on warm slippers before opening her desk drawer and pulling out the bundle of letters she kept there from Andy.
She leafed through the stack of envelopes, each one worn from being read so many times. It only took a moment to find the letter she wanted. She wondered if Andy ever knew how much she treasured these messages. She hoped so.
Please, Andy, if you can hear me,she begged her brother inwardly.Help me convince him that he needs to stay here with us.
Ella spoke to her brother in her mind all the time, knowing she was really just calling on her memories for comfort.
But tonight, a sense of peace settled over her, like a warm quilt laid over a child on a winter night.
She hurried down the stairs as quietly as she could. The last thing she wanted was to wake the whole house and scare Dalton off.
When she reached the living room, she found him standing by the fireplace, his eyes on the window.
