They went crazy in the cold; they went deep into the heart of their religion and emerged as lunatics. But even this was familiar. Sane, they wanted to believe that they were the sort of people whose babies had been held and cuddled by Ralph Truitt, and he found it easy enough to foster the illusion that these things mattered to him. Still, their glowing lives, their families, were intertwined in ways that he couldn’t even imagine.

But this woman was not expected. He was angry. He was confused. He had read her letter until it fell apart in his hands. He had looked at her picture a thousand times. Now it was clear she wasn’t the woman in the photograph, and he had no idea who she might be. His relation to every person in the town rested on the fact that he had complete control over everything that happened to him. Now this wild thing. The train late. The blinding snow. This woman.

It was a mistake. He felt it in the pit of his stomach, everything wrong, the letter, the picture, his foolish hope. It was a mistake to have wanted, to have felt desire, but he had, he had wanted something for himself. Now the object of his desire was here, and it was all, none of it, what he had wanted.

He had wanted a simple, honest woman. A quiet life. A life in which everything could be saved and nobody went insane.

He couldn’t turn her away, couldn’t leave her in a blizzard. He couldn’t be seen leaving her. There would be talk. He would appear to be unkind. So he would take her in from the storm, give her shelter for a night or two, no more. Her beauty troubled him the most, so unexpected, the sweetness of her voice, the fragile bones of her hand as he helped her into the carriage. Who, then, was the woman in the picture? It troubled him, enough so that he was sharp with the horses and would not look her in the face.