Chapter 7
Finally he said, "Things got complicated."
Oscar frowned.
Seven years old, and already learning that complicated was a word grown people used when the truth embarrassed them.
I stepped between them.
"Your things are no longer here."
Curtis looked at me.
"I didn't expect them to be."
"The marriage was dissolved last year."
That hit him.
I saw it.
His jaw hardened.
"You divorced me?"
"The court did."
"You had no idea whether I was alive."
"I knew you knew where we were."
"Rosalie."
"You sent no money. No letter. No word."
His gaze dropped.
"I couldn't."
"You could write a note when you left."
Adrien shifted slightly behind me.
I had almost forgotten he was there.
Curtis had not.
"You discussing family business in front of him now?"
"This stopped being your family business when you disappeared."
Curtis's expression went hard.
Adrien spoke for the first time since giving his name.
"Mrs. Dunore, I should go."
I looked at him.
On the table inside the cabin were forty dollars I had not accepted.
Our conversation was unfinished.
Everything was unfinished.
Adrien's gaze stayed steady.
"I'll come by tomorrow."
"You don't have to."
"I know."
He walked toward his horse.
Curtis watched him.
"You buying something?"
Adrien paused.
His eyes went to Clover.
"Not anymore."
Oscar's shoulders loosened.
Curtis noticed.
"What were you buying?"
"Clover," Oscar said.
Curtis looked at the cow.
Then at me.
"You're selling the milk cow?"
"I was."
"Why?"
I could have told him everything.
The note.
The winter.
The price of flour.
The cracked wagon wheel.
Oscar's outgrown coat.
The butter I had churned after midnight because there had not been enough hours in daylight.
Instead I said, "Because there was a debt."
Curtis looked toward the house.
"How much?"
"Thirty-six dollars."
His face did something I could not read.
"You couldn't manage thirty-six dollars?"
The yard went silent.
I had imagined Curtis's return many times.
In some versions I slapped him.
In some I screamed.
In some I collapsed into tears.
In none of them had I imagined the first thing that truly made me furious would be that sentence.
"You don't get to ask me that."
"I didn't mean it like that."
"How did you mean it?"
He looked toward Adrien.
Perhaps he realized how he sounded.
Perhaps he did not.
Adrien mounted.
"Tomorrow, Mrs. Dunore."
Then he looked at Oscar.
"Take care of Clover."