“Are you doing all right?” I whispered, turning my attention to Ax. There was a tension in his frame even the sweetness of the music could not fully eradicate. Resolute, since that first night apart from her, Axton had refrained from speaking of Patricia during our journey out of Illinois and across the plains of Iowa. But he called for her in his sleep almost every night, as though in his dreams she was just within reach, disappearing as he woke.
Axton’s face was cast in gold by the fire’s light. He knew what I was truly asking. “No, but not so’s anybody but you or Marsh would notice.”
“I wish…”
Axton shook his head, effectively interrupting me. “I had to let her go, Ruthie, I know there was no other choice, and it hurts like fucking poison.” I could smell whiskey on his breath; Ax didn’t normally drink, or curse, and I attributed the subsequent rush of words to this. He passed his free hand over his eyes. “But even if I could escape the pain I wouldn’t, because it’s all I have of her. I can’t give up even that much of what I have left. When I close my eyes, she’s all I see. When I sleep, I dream of her. I’m haunted.” His shoulders rose with a heaving breath and in his eyes I saw a conviction that frightened me, not because of the strength of feeling it conveyed but that those feelings would work to consume Axton, burning him alive, until there was nothing left but ash.
I couldn’t think of one thing to say to ease his pain.
“I’m sorry to go on this way,” he muttered, squeezing me in a one-armed version of a hug. “I am truly happy for you and Marsh, I hope you know.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. I know you are. I wish I could make things right.” I faltered for a second, unwilling to cause Axton additional pain; at last I admitted, “I’ve always thought Cole was the wrong choice. I think Patricia should be with you, Ax. I care for Cole, I’m not saying I don’t, but I think you’re the better man all around. Cole is…” I struggled to settle on a tactful adjective, not wanting to be unjust. “He’s fickle. And vain. I hope being a father will tame some of that in him, but who knows? I’m afraid he won’t be able to sustain their lives together.”
“But they’ve a child now, it’s a claim I can’t deny. And he loves her. I can’t deny that either, much as I wish I could.” Axton’s voice was dust. I sensed the questions he could not bear to ask, hovering near our heads.
What happened that day? Why didn’t she wait for me?
I knew the answers, at least to some extent, and battled the need to protect Patricia’s secrets; the urge to tell Ax the truth pressed against my breastbone like an anvil. The fiddle music, the charcoal sky, and the fireglow lent our conversation a depth of confidence it may not have otherwise possessed. I damned it all and said, “Patricia’s in love with you, Ax, as you well know. But a part of her loves Cole, too. And she’s tortured by it, to her very core. I spent all last winter with her, hearing her talk about you while carrying Cole’s baby, and she begged me not to judge her. I assured her I don’t but she tortured herself all the same. That day last autumn, with Cole…”
Axton was motionless as a sculpture, watching me with the intensity of a hawk about to strike.
I bit the insides of my cheeks, glancing down at the little boy whose head lay in my lap, finding him sound asleep. Axton and I seemed alone in the crowd, wrapped in a smooth, glassy bubble of intimacy, bound by the gravity of our conversation. No matter what, Ax deserved to know the truth. Patricia owed him an explanation and was not here to deliver it. I hoped she would understand my reasoning; remembering her last stolen moments in the chapel with Axton, I knew she would.
“Tell me, Ruthie.” He spoke quietly but the words were a clear demand, and I thought suddenly of the night I’d first met Ax, the hesitant, boyish fellow he’d been, so unsure of himself. And despite the fact that he remained inherently sweet and kind he’d lost his hesitance, had become much more man than boy. In that moment he reminded me more of Case than ever before.
In order to understand, Axton required the necessary background story. I drew a deep breath, keeping my voice low. “Patricia and Dredd did not…make love. Their wedding night was the first and last time he touched her. Dredd wasn’t unkind to her, I saw with my own eyes last year when we were in his company, but he wanted little to do with Patricia. She felt rejected. Worse than that, she felt undesirable. When Cole proposed to her that afternoon last fall, she was swept up in the moment of it.” I all but gritted my teeth at the expression on Axton’s face. “Up to that point, they’d never even kissed. She’d only kissed you. But Cole’s very persuasive…and she wanted to know what it meant to make love with someone who loved and wanted her.”
“That was…the only time?” Had a fist been clutching his windpipe Axton could not have sounded more strangled.
I nodded. “Once is all it takes, sometimes. It wasn’t until late last November that Patricia and
