Nearheart replied to her husband's suggestion with a frustration that tried to seem stoutly in opposition.
"A village? Really? Do you know what happens in a village? Everybody's in your business. Always watching what you do and what you don't and criticizing like they had a license. We're different, Farhead. We've got city ways. Rural life in Nova Scotia as opposed to city life in Toronto, that's one thing. You got me to agree to that. But life in a village, all jammed up like that? They'd roast us like a duck."
But she was, and thoroughly helplessly, a cleaver to the truth. So the tears that Farhead's answer instigated were only a surrender to her better self, that perfectly understood the reasoning, and they came even before he began arguing his case, because she knew he was right.
"Okay," she said, waving him off halfway through the first sentence of his justifications. "Okay. Yes, I do like Cloud and Minnie. Who wouldn't? I'm surprised you do, since they're two women in love with each other. And yes, that would make our life affordable again." She took a deep breath before continuing, as if that would stave off the panic that had her by the throat. "And yes you're right. Their generosity defies belief. And I can downsize. I can downsize EVEN FURTHER. To having just one room that we can call our own. Just can you, just can you leave me alone for a while?"
She drove straight to the village and walked around it till the surging tide of her anxiety abated. Then she knocked on Cloud's and Minnie's door and said yes and said yes and said yes and then dissolved in tears because of course they understood.