A History of Wild Places(44)

“But you don’t love me enough to have a child with me.”

“No.” His hand grazes my arm but I flinch back. “It’s not that.”

I brush a palm over both my eyes, my traitorous body upheaving the pain I’m trying to hide. I won’t let him hurt me this way, break me apart. I am stronger than anything he could do to me.

He clears his throat. “But you’re not the only one I love.”

Little spasms erupt along my spine and tears finally streak past my cheeks, catching on my chin before falling to the floor. I need to reach out for something, my legs suddenly weak beneath me, but Levi is the nearest thing and I refuse to touch him. “Who?” I ask.

“Alice Weaver and I have been close for some time.”

Alice. Alice. Alice fucking Weaver. Alice who works in the community kitchen and always smells of flour and fresh honey, a few years younger than me, her laugh like a quick tolling bell, gentle, easy. I’ve always liked her: sweet, mild Alice. But now I might hate her. Alice Weaver, who he loves more than me. A decent wife. One befitting the leader of Pastoral.

You do not marry the blind girl—the one others speak about in whispers, who hears too much, who always stands apart at the gatherings, who sneaks into Levi’s house when no one’s looking, a strange girl indeed. You marry the girl who bakes bread loaves on Wednesdays and Sundays, who laughs brightly when you run your fingers through her hair.

A good, predictable wife.

I’ve been so dumb. Dumb. I didn’t see what this was, what he thought it was. I am the girl he sleeps with in secret, who he’s known most of his life, the girl he trusts.

But Alice. She is simple and uncomplicated: a perfect wife. She will stand on the stage with him during weekly gatherings and smile and talk about the crops and the preservation of our way of life. She will be obedient. She will never defy him—as I have.

Alice will be his. And I will be…

“Bee?” Levi says, and I tilt my head, unsure if I’ve spoken any of my thoughts aloud. But I don’t give a shit if I have. Alice Weaver. Alice Weaver. Her name won’t stop clacking against the walls of my mind, carved there now, etched in good. Fucking permanent. “I was never sure if you really loved me anyway. If you wanted to be my wife.”

“What?” I hear myself say, although I’m certain I’m no longer in control of my vocal cords.

“You’ve always talked of the outside, of leaving. I never thought you really wanted to be here, with me.”

He’s full of shit. He knows this isn’t true. I’ve always loved him; since we were kids, I’ve done everything for him. I built my life around him, waiting, waiting for him.

But—

Maybe I never told him this.

Maybe he’s right, and I kept this reckless devotion for him tucked safely inside myself where it couldn’t be seen. Maybe he never knew how I truly felt: how much I needed him. How my love was making me mad. Maybe this is my fault. My knees begin to shake and the darkness beyond my eyes starts to toss and teeter.

“You can still have this baby,” he says in the dark of my mind, drawing me back. “Do you hear me? You should have the baby.” As if I need his permission. As if I care anymore what he thinks. “But someone else needs to be the father.”

I’m shaking my head, a reflex. I might be sick. Right here on his living room floor, where little feet will run and skip and summersault. Where knees will be skinned and late nights spent curled up on the rug beside the fire. A life that won’t be mine.

How did I not know after all this time, not hear the waver in his voice, the omission of truth?

Surely others in the community have known. Surely he has not kept Alice a secret from everyone. But I didn’t see. Because love is madness and blindness and deception.

I reach forward and my fingertips find his chest, the slow rise and fall—I need to feel him one last time. One last goodbye. I trace a line up his throat to his chin, feeling the small scar cut vertically into his flesh. Most don’t know it’s there, but I do. When we were eleven, we climbed one of the hazelnut trees beyond the pond, and a branch broke beneath him and he fell to the ground, cutting his chin on a limb. I remember how frightened I was—in my child-mind, I was certain he was dead. I scrambled down the tree and pressed a thumb to the cut, absorbing his blood. He smiled up at me, and I knew he was still alive—I knew he meant more to me than anything else, and I couldn’t lose him.

I lower my hand, pressing it to my side. Because now I am losing him.

“You will marry her?” I ask.

A slow beat of silence, and then, “Yes.”

I wish he had lied, kept this from me a little while longer. But instead, my heart becomes a stone, hardening in my chest, no longer pumping blood. He will live in this house with her. Swollen belly and swollen toes that he will rub and kiss and make better. While I will grow in size in a farmhouse down the road with only my sister to care for me. I will be alone. And a baby will be born with an unknown father who I will not name.

He tries to touch me again, his fingers trailing over my palm, but the heat inside my chest boils, bubbles over. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I snap, turning away. I can’t be here, in the house where I believed someday I would live. With this man who… this man who I can no longer allow myself to love.

My legs carrying me to the door, hand cutting through the air in front of me so I don’t stumble over the wood chair that sits near the entryway.