“Oh, Ruthie, I’ve missed you every day you were away. We prayed for your safe return every night, without fail. This past winter proved longer than any I’ve ever known,” Birdie said, all of us gathered about the outdoor hearth for a homecoming celebration that night, the men drinking whiskey and the kids crawling all over our laps. I had scarcely released my hold on Miles’s nine-month-old son.
Celia, his mother and my dear friend, sat on my other side, smiling as she watched me feather Jacob’s dark hair and study his eyes, long-lashed and deep gray in color, just like Celia’s – and Marshall’s; I’d finally discovered the ancestor who’d gifted Marshall with his beautiful eyes. When we’d arrived, Celia enveloped me in her warm embrace, both of us crying; she’d whispered in my ear, “Thank you for stopping me from sending him away, dear Ruth. I don’t know what I would do without my boy.”
“I’m so glad to be back,” I told Birdie, leaning to rest my cheek on her upper arm.
“And your Marshall has finally found you.” Celia nodded in his direction, her voice warm with satisfaction. “His resemblance to Miles is right uncanny, straight down to the way he moves. I’ll tell you, sweet Ruth, that there man was fit to be tied when he couldn’t go after you last year. Winter had set in, you see. He was near feral. A Rawley through and through.”
Marsh sat between Grant and Axton on the opposite side of the fire, the three of them chatting with ease; the bond forged between Grant and Marshall last year, when Marsh spent the winter here, was undeniably strong, and Marshall clearly reminded Grant of his younger brother, Miles, who had died in this very house a year ago. In addition to Ax, Grant and Birdie rounded out the small group of those who knew the truth. I wasn’t sure if they fully believed the story – and who could blame them – but they accepted it, and us, for which I was grateful beyond measure. They were careful not to ask too many questions; among our many fears, Marshall and I were afraid we’d already caused too much damage to the timeline, which, in books, film, and television – our only basis for comparison – always seemed irreparably fragile, like damp tissue paper.
I’d visited Miles’s grave earlier this afternoon, not long after our arrival; Grant and Birdie had buried him beneath a towering willow tree growing on the banks of the little spring-fed creek which ran through their property; the turned earth was marked with a handmade wooden cross until a proper headstone could be erected.
“Do you want to be alone?” Marshall had asked as we walked out past the house to Miles’s resting place. We stood perhaps a dozen yards distant and I could see the silhouette of the cross against the gold dust of late-afternoon sunglow. Behind us, on the other side of a low rise in the foothills, the steep roofline of Grant and Birdie’s house was just visible.
“Just for a minute,” I whispered, already burning with unshed tears, and he nodded his understanding acceptance of my need to visit Miles with no one else present. As I knelt at the grave, I wished for a bundle of roses to place at the base of the cross. I touched Miles’s name, tracing the letters carved into the wood by Grant’s hand: Miles William Rawley, beloved brother, 1857 – 1881. I struggled with the knowledge that Miles had been only twenty-four years old; his inherently somber nature always made him seem older.
“Miles,” I whispered, aching with sorrow, resting my hands flat on the earth beneath which he lay, the man who’d loved me with all his heart and whose death I’d been unable to prevent. I’d loved him – I was honest enough to admit this – even though I relentlessly avoided the thought of what might have happened had Miles lived to become my husband. I consented to marry him last autumn, before I’d regained the memories of who I really was, only to have Marshall appear seeking me here in 1882. I knew, without a doubt, I would have gone to Marshall no matter what the circumstances – but what if I’d already been expecting Miles’s baby at that point? What would have been, then?
It was too much for my mind to wrap around, too brutally painful to consider.
“I love you, Miles.” Tears fell to my skirt as I knelt there. “You’re gone and I miss you. I miss you every day, deep in my heart.” The need to confess rose like smoke in my chest, demanding release; I was aware that Marshall remained distant, watching silently. “I know you would have loved me all your life. I am so sorry for so many things. I want you to know I found my husband and that I believe you were him in this life. That the two of you share a soul, or pieces of a soul, somehow. I believe your son is his ancestor and if not for you, Marshall would never have lived.”
I pictured Miles’s face as I remembered it best, his black mustache lifting with a smile, his eyes, dark as coffee without cream, resting on me with both tenderness and intensity. I remembered the softness of his lips against mine, his sweet words of love, the way he’d held me and would have done anything to protect me; how I’d watched him play his fiddle so many nights, and the overpowering relief I always felt when he returned from being away from me. The last thing I wanted was to make a scene but I
