Chapter 18
When she finished, she tied the thread.
“There.”
“Pretty?”
“Tragic.”
“I was afraid of that.”
She began putting the medical things away.
I watched her.
Daylight made everything feel more ordinary.
That almost made the night harder to believe.
Outside, Elias shifted against the porch post.
His chains rattled.
Cora flinched.
I noticed.
She noticed me noticing.
“I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“I will be.”
“That’s different.”
She looked at me.
I pointed to the chair opposite mine.
“Sit.”
“I need to pack food.”
“Sit.”
Something in my voice must have told her I was finished avoiding the conversation.
She sat.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then I said, “Tell me the rest.”
Her fingers tightened together.
“You know enough.”
“I know enough to understand why you ran.”
“That should be enough.”
“It isn’t.”
A shadow crossed her face.
I leaned forward.
“I’m not asking because I think you owe me every ugly memory you have.”
Her eyes lifted.
“I’m asking because we have to decide what happens after town.”
She understood.
Our marriage.
That was the part neither of us had spoken aloud.
Maybe she had married me under false pretenses.
Maybe I had entered marriage with expectations no woman should have been expected to fulfill.
Maybe we had saved each other’s lives.
None of those facts answered the simplest question.
What were we now?
Cora looked toward the stove.
“When my mother became ill, the Vanes paid the doctor.”
I waited.
“After she died, Mrs. Vane told me I could stay. She said I was nearly family.”
Nearly.
I already hated the word.
“Elias was kind at first. Or what I believed was kindness.”
She swallowed.
“He brought books. Took me riding. Asked what I thought about things no one else asked me about.”
“You liked him.”
“Yes.”
The admission hurt unexpectedly.
I kept my face still.
“I was seventeen. He was twenty-two. I thought he treated me like I mattered.”
“What changed?”
“I began saying no.”
Of course.
“To what?”
“Small things at first. A ride when I wanted to read. A dinner when I was tired. A dress he chose.”
Her eyes hardened.
“Every refusal became an argument about gratitude.”
She looked at her hands.
“Then one evening he told me we would marry in spring.”
“He told you.”
“He did not ask.”
“And when you refused?”
“He laughed.”
I remembered her earlier words.