#jodielarsonfh

Komei is not, by nature, a man prone to nerves, but tonight is different. He steps to the bar and orders himself a small glass of whiskey, turning it once in his hand before downing it in a single, decisive swallow. The burn steadies him, settles something restless in his chest. Then he waits.

When Jodie arrives, she is not difficult to spot. Komei straightens, crossing the floor to meet her and offering his hand, wasting little time  leading her into the next dance. Though neither of them are particularly talented dancers, they move well enough together, in quiet understanding of the other’s rhythm. 

When the song ends, they do not part immediately, Komei instead guiding her just beyond the busiest part of the floor. For a moment, he says nothing; then, gathering what courage remains (either from the whiskey or something deeper) he speaks.

“I have come to care for you,” he begins. “More than is wise, perhaps. More than I had intended. But I would rather be honest than silent. If you would have me,” he says, “I would ask you to be my wife.”

Jodie’s breath catches not in hesitation, but in something closer to relief.

“Yes,” she says, almost at once. “Yes, I would.”

There is a quiet, selfish sort of happiness in it, to be chosen for love alone. No financial arrangement, not for obligation, none of the uncertain reasoning that seems to guide her twin’s own impending marriage to Angela Pleasant. Whatever that union may be built upon, this feels different; this feels entirely her own.

Later, when the lanterns dim and the crowd thins, Komei leads Jodie outside to where his horse waits, offering her a steady hand as she climbs up behind him, the road to his cabin stretching ahead beneath the stars.

Reverend Goopy makes small talk with the guests, hands folded neatly over his Bible while he quietly prepares for the ceremony ahead. Nearby, the Pleasant family gathers together in a cluster of muted conversation and nervous anticipation. Mary-Sue fusses endlessly with details no one else notices, while Daniel Pleasant attempts to appear calm despite looking vaguely overwhelmed by the reality that his two eldest girls will both soon be wives.  Lilith sits, Tank beside her, exchanging the occasional knowing look whenever Mary-Sue begins unnecessarily straightening Daniel's already-straight tie, while the Oldies chat with Ruth in the front pews.

And near the front of the Church, for perhaps the first time in his adult life, Jason Larson looks genuinely nervous. Beside him stands his sister, smiling supportively while quietly teasing him beneath her breath whenever he adjusts his collar for the fourth or fifth time. Then the church doors open, and Angela enters, winter light catching softly against her veil as every eye in the room turns toward her at once.

“Marriage,” Reverend Goopy begins, his voice carrying softly through the little church, “is not merely affection spoken aloud on pleasant days. It is work shared in hard winters. It is faith kept when tempers are short and cupboards are lean.”

“A good marriage is built much like a homestead,” he continues. “Board by board. Prayer by prayer. Day by day. And if tended with care, it becomes a shelter strong enough to weather any storm the Lord sees fit to send.” Angela glances toward Jason then, and he squeezes her hands gently in response.

The ceremony itself is simple but heartfelt. Vows are exchanged, and when the Reverend finally pronounces them husband and wife, the kiss that follows is met with warm applause echoing through the little church.

Afterward, everyone gathers at the Pleasant home, where celebration quickly overtakes the lingering chill of the day. Mary-Sue has prepared a beautiful roast fowl for the occasion, served alongside various vegetables from John’s farm (sent as an apology for the Burb’s inability to attend the ceremony due to preparation for the winter). The house hums with conversation and laughter as coats are shed and plates passed between family members.

Herb pulls out a bottle of wine he’d ordered just for the occasion, and Angela and Jason raise goblets from Mary-Sue and Daniel’s very own wedding that have remained in storage for years, awaiting just an occasion. The room quiets.

“To Angela,” Jason says, looking toward his new wife with unmistakable but still surprising affection. “I mean to spend the rest of my life proving I deserve to be your husband.” Angela beams as the room cheers, and the pair toast to the hope of a promising future.

Jason Larsen has built a thriving business in Freedom Hollow as the town’s postmaster and owner of the stagecoach station, ensuring that letters, parcels, and travelers alike pass smoothly through the dusty streets. He is now engaged to the beautiful Angela Pleasant, a match that promises to unite wealth, status, and ambition in ways the townsfolk are eager to see. Jason delights in the prospect of starting a family and taking on the responsibilities of a husband, yet those who know him well whisper that he still spends far more time upstairs at Cooke’s Saloon than is strictly proper. Will Jason break this habit after the wedding, or will old habits persist? 

Winter keeps Komei Tellerman busy. The cold makes his work at the gong pits more miserable than usual, but there is little room for complaint. The pits must be kept clean, and Komei knows that the best way to do it is to burn whatever scrap wood he can gather and save the resulting ash. Day after day, he feeds small fires behind his cabin, allowing them to burn down to heaps of fine gray ash, then he carefully gathers it into sacks and saves it for the work ahead. 

A few days before Christmas, he stops at the General Store with a handful of coins tucked into his pocket, determined to find something useful for Jodie; something practical. He stands behind Dina Landgraab, who herself is admiring the soaps and makeup. Jodie has never been the type to appreciate those…nor ribbons nor perfume. 

Christmas Day arrives, and Komei spends the morning preparing his little house. He cleans the table and stokes the fire, and then preps a small roast pork for the oven. Jodie is spending the earlier part of Christmas with Jason and Angela, and though Komei knows she will not arrive until later, he finds himself glancing toward the door every few minutes.

At last, near sunset, there is a knock, and Komei's face brightens immediately. Jodie steps inside, bundled against the cold, and snaps her gaze toward the oven. 

"You cooked?"

"I can cook." She gives him a look.

"I didn't say you couldn't."

"You looked surprised."

"I was."

They sit down together once the pork is ready. The roast is tender and rich, served with potatoes, carrots, and thick gravy. After supper, Komei disappears briefly into the other room, and when he returns, he carries a little bucket of clothespins.

"For you." Jodie stares at the bucket for several seconds, almost in shock. 

"I needed these."

"I know. You’re always saying the old ones break." She looks up at Komei with genuine affection.

"You really do pay attention." He shrugs, suddenly bashful.

"I try."

Christmas morning with the Larsons begins quietly. Angela, bundled in her coat, returns from a trip to the outhouse, while Jodie pours out the dirty water from washing up the breakfast dishes. For once, they are not arguing. Jodie glances sideways at her new sister-in-law.

"You seem happy."

"I am."

"Good." The answer surprises Angela enough that she laughs.

"What? No argument?"

"I promised Jason my Christmas gift to you would be pleasantries." This earns a laugh from both of them, and for the first time Angela realizes that, despite all their bickering, she has genuinely come to enjoy having Jodie around.

Later that morning comes the exchange of gifts, and Jason presents his to Angela with an almost boyish eagerness. In his arms is a beautiful length of green plaid fabric, pale in color and fine enough to make a lovely dress or winter skirt. Angela holds the cloth tightly against herself. 

"I remembered you stopping to look at something similar at your grandparents’."

"You remembered that?"

"I remember most things when they're about you." The answer earns him a kiss and leaves him looking rather pleased with himself for the rest of the morning.

Later, as Christmas dinner cooks, Jodie finally decides it is time to share news she has been keeping to herself. The announcement comes so casually that Jason nearly misses it.

"Komei proposed, by the way." Jason nearly chokes on a cup of coffee.

"When?"

"At the barn dance."

"And you never told me?"

"You were busy getting married,” Jodie replies simply, explaining she will likely be wed by spring.

By evening, Christmas has settled, the dishes have been washed, and the candles cast a soft glow across the room. Snow continues to fall and Jodie retires to her bedroom, leaving Angela and Jason alone beside the fireplace. Angela stands in her nightdress, enjoying the warmth of the hearth while Jason adds another log to the flames.

It is then that Angela suddenly pauses, looking up at Jason, her expression somewhere between confusion and realization.

"Jason…"

The answer arrives all at once, with a simple pop, and for a moment neither speaks. Then Jason lets out a delighted laugh.

"You're kidding." The next thing she knows, Jason has swept Angela into such an enthusiastic embrace that she nearly loses her footing. “A baby!” 

He crouches in front of her and places both hands against her stomach.

"Hello there," he says so earnestly that Angela bursts out laughing.

"There’s barely a bump yet."

"I know that," He says, but he keeps talking anyway.

Earlier that morning, Jason had given her the beautiful fabric, and she had considered it may have been the finest Christmas present she had ever received. 

One bitterly cold morning, Jason bundles himself in layers of fur and makes the walk toward the post office. Snow crunches beneath his boots, and by the time he arrives, the wind has turned his nose and cheeks a bright, painful red.

The little post office offers little warmth, and Jason immediately kneels beside the pot-bellied stove in the corner and sets about building a fire. He feeds it kindling first, then heavier logs, until the crackle of flames slowly chases the chill from the room.

Throughout the day, townsfolk drift in and out to collect letters, send correspondence, and linger near the stove a little longer than necessary. By late afternoon, Jason finally locks the door and starts the walk home through the snow-covered streets of town.

His route, unfortunately, takes him past the saloon.

Light spills from its windows onto the snow, and even from outside he can hear the muffled piano, laughter, and familiar warmth. He slows almost without thinking, boots crunching softly as he pauses for a moment in front of the building. The saloon promises heat, company, whiskey, and the easy comfort of old habits.

Back at the Larson house that afternoon, things are considerably less peaceful. Inside, Angela and Jodie are discovering that sharing a home is an adjustment, particularly for two women who both possess strong opinions about how a household ought to be run. The disagreement begins over something trivial and rapidly becomes about everything else instead.

By the time the bickering finally winds down, Angela stares at Jodie with growing disbelief before blurting, “I’ve somehow replaced one annoying sister with another.”

Jodie gasps dramatically. “I heard that.”

“It was meant to be heard.”

“You are impossible.”

“So I’ve been told.”

As the afternoon darkens, Angela begins preparing supper. The stew simmers on the stove, bread is sliced, candles are lit, and Jason still has not returned home. She tells herself not to worry, then tells herself not to be irritated, and succeeds only moderately at either.

By the time the winter sun has fully disappeared and darkness settles over Freedom Hollow, Angela finally sighs in defeat.

“Well,” she says, ladling stew into bowls, “he knows where home is.”

Jodie looks up from the table. “Giving up on him?”

“For tonight.”

The words have barely left her mouth when the front door opens and a rush of cold air sweeps into the house along with a swirl of snowflakes. Jason steps inside, cheeks once again reddened from the cold just as they were when he left that morning. Angela immediately notices something: there is no smell of whiskey and no trace of cigar smoke clinging to him, only cold winter air and melting snow.

“You’re late,” she says as she sets supper on the table.

“A little,” Jason replies as he stamps the snow from his boots. Angela studies him carefully.

“Sit down,” she says at last. “Before it gets cold.” He obeys immediately, which earns him a suspicious look from Jodie.

Jodie begins at the Trading Post, hoping a busy day will quiet her thoughts. She trades a week of laundering for a sack of slack lime from Cyd Roseland, another essential ingredient in her soap-making. Cyd offers a polite nod, considering it a fair exchange, and Jodie accepts with thanks. From there, she makes her rounds through town, delivering neatly bundled parcels of clean laundry and arranging times for soiled clothing to be dropped off later in the week. Each doorstep brings polite conversation, and practiced smiles, none of which Jodie means in earnest. 

That evening, she prepares and subsequently cleans supper in silence, setting plates and tidying as Jason sits at the table reading the paper. The quiet between them is thick and brittle, broken only by the scrape of cutlery and the soft rustle of turning pages. Neither mentions the morning’s fire nor the argument that followed, but both feel it still lingering in the air. 

By evening, Jodie finds herself at the barn dance, drawn more by habit and obligation than any true desire for festivity, though it doesn't take long for her to be dragged into an exhausting round of the Slap Dance. Needing a moment of air, she slips outside, stepping into the cool night and the quieter shadows beyond the lantern light.

Left alone in the house, Jodie has nearly settled with her sewing when a knock sounds at the door. To her surprise, it is Komei Tellerman, hat in hand and expression awkward as ever, come to deliver some ash to aid Jodie in crafting laundering solution and, perhaps, to linger longer than propriety would suggest. Their conversation is full of small courtesies and uneasy pauses, but something gentle and unexpected settles between them.

Komei, for all his clumsy words, listens with earnest attention, and Jodie finds herself speaking more freely than she has in weeks. One moment stretches into the next, and before either quite realizes it, the quiet house holds more than conversation. Their closeness is less reckless and indulgent than Jason’s had been, and it leaves Jodie with a sense of warmth she has not felt in some time.

By the faint gray of dawn, the forgotten dish Jodie had placed in the oven prior to Komei's unexpected visit smolders, then flares, smoke curling into the hallway before flames burst sharply from the stove. Jodie enters the kitchen with a gasp, heart pounding, just as the front door flies open and Jason stumbles in from the night. Eyes widening at the sight before him, he rushes forward, beating back the flames before they can take hold.

When the danger has passed, Jason turns to his sister angrily. “What were you thinking, Jodie?” He snaps, his voice rough with exhaustion and fear. “You could’ve burned the whole house down. I work myself raw to keep this place standing, and you nearly lose it by being careless!”