Chapter 19
She tucked the coat around him again. “I will not leave you.”
“You may not get another chance.”
“Then I shall try not to waste this one.”
“Damn your stubbornness.”
“You purchased it with the rest of me.”
The sentence landed harder than she intended. Calvin’s eyes closed.
Henrietta wished at once that she could pull the words back, not because they were untrue but because she had seen where they struck. She had spent months imagining a moment when Calvin might finally be made to feel the weight of what he had done. She had never imagined it would come while his lips were turning blue beneath a mountain ledge.
After a long silence, he said, “I deserved that.”
She busied herself rubbing his hand between hers. “Do not become agreeable. You’ll alarm me.”
“I am not agreeable.”
“No. There you are.”
His breathing steadied. The last light thinned until the mouth of the shelter became a gray slit filled with flying white. Henrietta could no longer see his fingers clearly, only the shape of them between her palms.
Calvin spoke into the darkness. “You should hate me.”
“That sounds suspiciously like fishing for comfort.”
“I am serious.”
“So am I.”
He waited. Henrietta knew he expected more and resented herself for understanding him so easily. “Hate takes energy,” she said at last. “You have required quite enough of mine.”
His head turned against the stone. “I thought you were weak.”
“Yes.”
“I thought your father had sent me a burden in a silk dress.”
“Yes.”
“I thought—”
“I was there, Calvin. You need not recite the inventory.”
His breath escaped roughly. “I am trying to say I was wrong.”
Henrietta stopped rubbing his hand.
Outside, the storm beat against the mountain without mercy. Inside, Calvin seemed to struggle more painfully with the words than he had with his fractured leg.
“At the ravine,” he continued, “when the ledge broke, I thought you would let go. Anyone sensible would have.”
“I have never claimed to be sensible.”
“You tied yourself to that root and came down after me.”
“Yes.”
“You cut my boot loose with a knife you could barely hold.”
“Yes.”
“You climbed with knees that were giving way, dragging half my weight whenever I slipped.”
“Yes.”
His voice lowered. “I misjudged your strength.”
Henrietta stared toward the white darkness beyond them. Of all the things she had once imagined hearing from him, that had not been among them. She had wanted him to call her beautiful, perhaps, in her more foolish moments. She had wanted him to regret refusing to kiss her. She had wanted him to look ashamed when he remembered the way he had spoken of their marriage.