Chapter 12
twelve
. . .
Jace
Rosalind is quiet for half a mile. Then she says, “I need to tell you something.”
My eyes stay on the road. The logging trail is rutted from the storm, soft in places where the runoff cut new channels. Spool lies with his head on her thigh.
“Go on,” I say.
“Sheriff Granger told Evelyn that the pass will be open in two days.”
My right foot presses the accelerator. My hands don’t move on the wheel. The road keeps going in front of us. A knot grows in my gut.
“Jace?” she asks.
“Heard you.” Nothing more comes. I focus on getting us to the cabin in one piece.
She watches me, waiting for me to speak. I don’t.
I count switchbacks, notice that the aspens on the left are new-leafed, and estimate the drop on the right where the creek has run brown all week.
I have driven this road for six years. I know each curve, which roots the front tire will catch on, and where to slow for the deer crossing in the fall.
Right now, I’m driving it like a stranger. My hands grip the wheel, but my mind pulls away.
Fuck.
She’s leaving me.
The cabin is a mile up the road. Her cardigan is on my couch. Her index cards are spread on my kitchen table. Her vanilla clings to my sheets and to the air in every room.
In two days, the cabin gets quiet again, and Spool and I will watch her drive away from the trailhead lot.
“Jace.” Her voice shrinks. “Say something.”
“What do you want me to say?” That’s how I sounded at the trailhead lot that rainy night. The tone I thought I’d buried.
She doesn’t answer. Her expression changes. That’s on me, but I can’t stop it. My throat closes.
Tell her.
I drive. Soon, the cabin appears through the trees. I park the truck in its usual spot, kill the engine, and pull the keys.
Spool’s tail thumps on the seat.
She sits beside me. “Jace.”
I can’t talk to her. Not yet. All I can do is get out of the truck. I cross the wet grass to the woodpile.
The axe leans against the stump where I left it. The rounds I split yesterday are stacked in the lean-to, but more wait.
Her boots crunch on the gravel behind me, then on the porch steps. She opens the door and goes inside.
I pick up the axe. My hands, after years of felling ponderosas and splitting rounds and hauling timber, won’t close around the handle. I set it down.
Spool sits in the wet grass with his one ear forward, looking up at me with the same expression he used the night he showed up half-dead on my porch.
My ribs clench cold, a familiar ache for the three of us. “Go inside, buddy.”
He doesn’t move.
“Spool. Go.”
He stays.
I grab the axe again. It’s cool in my palm, the grip worn smooth. My fingers curl, but my wrist goes weak. The head tips forward, and the steel sinks into the mud at my feet.
I leave the axe there.
Spool whines once, then rubs his muzzle on my leg. My hand rests on his back. My lungs burn, each gasp shallow.
Rain falls. I don’t move.
Her leaving anchors me to the spot.
The cabin door hasn’t opened. Rosalind’s silhouette moves past the kitchen window. Maybe she’s going to sit at the table with her cards.
She told me about the pass, and I gave her the voice from day one.
The downpour intensifies. Soaks through my flannel in under a minute. I tilt my face up. Cold water runs down my cheeks into my collar. I lower my face.
My wet hands are red. Splotchy. Shaking.
This is what Dad did. Stood at this woodpile. Kept his face blank when my mother left, the stove lit, and the bed made on his side.
That was love, I thought.
The light moves in the kitchen window.
Don’t go.
Spool whines. Looks toward the cabin, then back at me.
I think about Ghost up the ridge. Another man in a cabin on a mountain. Scarred differently, but the cuts run deep. We don’t talk because talking means admitting why we’re up here. Ghost’s life is his business. I’ve never questioned it. I’m questioning mine.
The kitchen window dims. She’s moved away from it.
I’m not my father. He had a son to raise, a house to maintain, and grief he didn’t know what to do with.
I have a dog at my heel and a woman in my cabin who reorganized my shelves so the westerns get the afternoon light.
He had a reason. I have a rut.
Rosalind didn’t pick the lock and force her way into my cabin. She walked in and filled every room with vanilla, index cards, and quiet. She sat on my porch, hummed while she cooked, and reorganized my shelves.
She waited for me to open the door. I chose to.
The pass is almost cleared, and I’m standing in the rain at a woodpile, stuck to the spot.
Wind roars off the ridge and cuts through my soaked clothes. I shiver.
The cabin has the heat off the stove, and Rosalind is inside because I wouldn’t speak to her. That’s warmth I refuse.
The axe is in the mud at my feet. My hands are at my sides.
We stay put.
I’ve been telling myself my hands won’t close around the handle. That something is broken in me. It’s been broken for thirty-one years. My hands work fine.
I set the axe down and left it there.
This isn’t how it has to be.
Spool whines and presses into my thigh.
My knees give. I catch myself on the stump. The wood is slick, and my palm slides. I stay there, bent forward. Spool pushes harder into my leg, refusing to move.
He chose me when I had nothing. He’s choosing me now.
The door I locked from the inside has a knob on this side. I can’t let her go without trying.
As I push off the stump, my legs shake. I push myself upright, one hand still on the wood. Rain sluices down my back. My teeth chatter.
I have to go to Rosalind. Ask her to stay, even if I don’t know how.
I haven’t asked anyone for anything since I was nine years old. That was when I asked Dad where Mom had gone. He said I do not know in a way I’ve never forgotten.
Do I have the words?
I push off the stump and stride toward the cabin.
The cabin door opens. She’s down the steps and on the wet grass, walking toward me in the rain.
A part of me wants to wait. That’s who I used to be. No more. I’ll meet her halfway.