“Take it. Open it.” He thrust it at her.
She put the pearls on his bed, gingerly took the folder in her hands, and carefully opened it. She studied the photographs. Cork watched her face go pale as her pearls.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Where did these come from?”
“Does it matter? Look at the lower corner of each of them. There’s a time-date stamp. Those pictures were taken the summer after Sam Winter Moon died. I wasn’t out then, Jo. Or I guess I was and just didn’t know it, huh?”
She looked ill, drained of all her color. “What difference does it make now, Cork?”
He turned away and went to the window. He watched the elm tree in the yard writhe in the wind like a creature in pain.
“What did I do to deserve this, Jo?”
“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Cork,” she said. Her voice was flat and cold and hard, like frozen ground. “Everything doesn’t happen because of you. Some things just happen.”
She moved behind him toward the bed. He heard the soft rustle of her dress. He didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see her at all.
“I’ve been trying to tell you,” she said. “Don’t get your hopes up. Didn’t I say that? But you wouldn’t listen. You didn’t want to hear. It’s over between us, Cork.”
“And Sandy Parrant is the reason.”
There was a long stillness, then Jo said, “I suppose.”
“Get out.”
“Cork-”
“Just get out.”
He heard the door open, heard her leave, heard the sound down the hallway of her own door closing. He turned and saw that she’d put the folder on the bed and taken her pearls.
For a long time he stood at the window listening to the howl of the wind outside. If it was true, as Henry Meloux said, that he’d heard the Windigo call his name, he understood why now. Because it felt exactly as if his heart had just been torn out of him and devoured.
23
Jo lay awake in the black of four A.M. remembering a moment before it all fell apart. She and Cork out at Russell Blackwater’s trailer in the hours before the shootings at Burke’s Landing. She recalled them holding one another and feeling a terrible numbness where caring should have been. She’d blamed it on the circumstances, the weight of what each of them carried that night, the responsibilities. But it wasn’t that. They were holding something dying, maybe already dead, but they were too scared to admit it.
She wondered why the tragedy at Burke’s Landing hadn’t brought them together. Adversity was supposed to do that, wasn’t it? Instead, everything got worse. Cork wasn’t just distant. Something in him seemed to have died along with the other deaths that drizzly morning. Nothing mattered. Not his job, his family, her. He called out in the night sometimes, sat bolt upright and grabbed at the air. What was it he was reaching for? The past? Was he trying to pull the dead men back? Trying to pull them all back?
She never knew. He wouldn’t talk about it.
Near dawn she heard Cork moving about. She put on her robe, went downstairs to the living room, and sat tensely on the sofa to wait for him. When he came down, she stood up, and clutched the robe around her throat as if she were freezing.
“Cork?” she said.
The living room was dark. He seemed startled by her presence.
“What?” he grumbled.
“Could we talk?”
“I’m on my way out.”
“We need to talk.”
“What’s there to talk about? You made everything clear.”
“I don’t want us to finish things all bitter and angry.”
“What am I supposed to do? Shake your hand and thank you kindly for leaving me for another man?”
“Could we just talk for a while?”
“You said yesterday you didn’t want to talk about our marriage anymore. So what’s changed?”
“You’re hurt. I didn’t want that.”
“What difference does it make to you?”
“I know you might not believe this, but I care about you.”
Cork was a solid darkness within the dark of the living room. Jo could see that he held the gym bag he’d used to bring his clothing from Sam’s Place. And he held his rolled-up bearskin.
“Could we talk in my office? Please?”
Cork didn’t answer, but he didn’t leave. Jo took that as a good sign and led the way. In her office, she closed the door behind them, then switched on the lamp on her desk. They both blinked a moment at the light.
“You look tired,” she said
“I didn’t sleep.”
“Me either.”
“You know what I did, Jo? I lay awake putting it all together, all the signs, signals. I could see it now, in neon. But, you know, what I couldn’t put together was where it began.”
“I don’t think you need to know the details. I don’t think that would do anybody any good.”
“You wanted to talk. This is what I want to talk about.”
Jo leaned against the oak desk thankful for the support of the solid wood. “It was after the shooting at Burke’s Landing. When Sandy and I were down in St. Paul together working to negotiate a settlement before any more blood was spilled. Things were intense. It just happened.”
“Just happened.” Cork shook his head.
“We were drifting already, Cork, don’t deny it. There were days we’d come home and not say more than a dozen words to one another, and then it was to talk about money or the kids’ school things or the most recent rumor making the rounds in Aurora. I don’t know, maybe we thought we knew each other so well we didn’t have to talk. If that was it, we were wrong. Because every night it felt as if I was going to bed with a stranger.”
“Even when we made love?”
“By then we were just having sex, Cork. I don’t even know when we stopped making love.”
Cork set his gym bag down and put the bearskin on top of it. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the door. “And along comes Sandy Parrant with his good looks and his money and just sweeps you off your feet.”
“It wasn’t his money or his looks. I needed someone, Cork. We’re not all as strong and self-contained as you are.”
“Oh, yeah, I was real strong after Burke’s Landing. Hell, I couldn’t even muster the energy to fight the recall petition. I could have used a little support then.”
“I tried to reach out, Cork, but you were like something made of ice. It was like everything in you had frozen over. There wasn’t any warmth toward me or the kids. Stevie was afraid to go near you, for Christ sake.”
“And that’s why you asked me to leave. It didn’t have anything to do with Sandy Parrant,” he said with bitter sarcasm.
Jo looked down. “You’re right. It probably had a lot to do with Sandy.”
“Christ, Jo, do you know how long I’ve felt like shit, felt like everything was all my fault?”
“I know, Cork, I know. The truth is,” she confessed, “I let you believe it because it made things easier for me.”
There was a knock at the door. Rose poked her head in and smiled. “I’m about to start breakfast. Anyone interested?” She glanced down and saw Cork’s gym bag and the bearskin, then she looked sadly at the two of
