Chapter 13
Curtis sat again.
"I kept thinking I'd come back after I fixed it. Then another month passed. Then another. Every month made it harder. After a year, I figured you hated me. After two, I figured you'd be better off."
"You figured correctly about one of those things."
He almost smiled.
I did not.
"What changed?"
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"I heard from a man in Helena that there was a Dunore woman outside Kestrel Flat selling butter alone. He'd passed through here."
My skin prickled.
"When?"
"Last winter."
"So you knew where we were."
"Yes."
"And you waited until May."
"I needed money to travel."
I looked at his boots.
They were cracked.
His coat was worn.
Maybe that part was true.
Curtis looked at me.
"I want another chance."
"No."
The speed of my answer stunned him.
"You didn't even think."
"I have thought for three years."
"I mean a chance to be Oscar's father."
That was different.
I looked at my son.
He had lowered the knife.
His face was too solemn for seven.
"You may earn that," I said.
Curtis breathed out.
"But not by sleeping here. Not by calling me your wife. Not by telling me where I can work. You will not promise him things you cannot keep. You will not disappear without telling him. If you are leaving town, you tell him first."
Curtis nodded slowly.
"And us?"
"There is no us."
His mouth tightened.
"Because of Brandt?"
Anger flashed so quickly I nearly laughed.
"Adrien Brandt has been in my house once."
"He gave you forty dollars."
"For work."
"He looked at you."
"So do you."
"Not like that."
My heart gave one hard beat.
I hated that Curtis had seen something I had refused to consider.
"There is nothing between Mr. Brandt and me."
"Yet."
"Enough."
Curtis stood.
Oscar looked up.
"Are you leaving?"
The question stopped him.
Curtis's whole face softened.
"For tonight."
Oscar considered that.
"Will you come tomorrow?"
Curtis looked at me.
I did not rescue him.
He had wanted the role.
He could carry its weight.
"Tomorrow afternoon," he said.
"You promise?"
Curtis flinched.
Then nodded.
"I promise."
Oscar went back to his stick.
Curtis walked toward the road.
At the gate he turned.
"Rosalie."
"What?"
"I was wrong to leave."
The words I had once dreamed of hearing arrived three years too late.