“I’d pay you.”

“You’d feed me.” He grinned. “That coffee cake’s not the only thing I can’t cook.”

I laughed, and the sound carried across the snow.

I’ve thought a lot, since, about the difference between justice and repair.

Justice is a clean thing. It’s a ledger, with a column for what was taken and a column for what’s owed, and a judge in a black robe to balance the two. I believe in it. I’d have sat in that courtroom, if I’d had to, with my chin up and my hands folded, and told the truth in a clear voice.

But justice, as it turned out, was not what I needed. I needed two hundred and twelve bales of hay, and a brother-in-law who would eventually lift a bale of his own free will, and a neighbor who would hold my elbow at a grave and mean it.