It is hard on Gretchen, the loneliness out here. Yes, I am lonely too, but I am a man, and used to solitude. She grew up with sisters, cousins, aunts, all talking...I was to her home before we were married.

It is the hardest, I think, in the summer. I am off in the fields, or the forest, or on another homestead, always working to make a better life for us. She is always near the house, also working. We see each other only when it is time for food or sleep. Always tired, I say barely a word, and I can feel a distance growing between us.

A distance of miles and hours and things left unsaid; things will be better in a few years, I tell her, but patience is a virtue not to be over-tested.

The winter comes with short days and long nights; the work in the fields stops, and we have saved enough food that I do not need to hunt much. Now I work near the house too, and though I am tired, there is time to talk.

We talk as we did when we were newlywed, of past and future and the present. And in the long dark, we do that which is proper between man and wife.

Perhaps this year we will be blessed with a child. Gretchen needs someone to talk to in the summer.