Chapter 25 #2
“But you've been excusing it to yourself all this time.”
“No.”
“Haven't you?”
Martha opened her mouth, then closed it.
Jonas saw the answer there too.
“I loved Amos,” she said after a moment.
“For a long time, I used that to explain things I shouldn't have explained.
I told myself I hadn't hurt anyone. I told myself I wasn't like the others because I never killed anyone.
But I helped them. I helped people who did terrible things, and whatever I intended doesn't change that.”
Jonas's anger faltered for one painful instant.
That was the Martha he knew speaking. The woman who took responsibility even when it hurt her.
But he could not fit her together with everything else.
He remembered her at the river with her sketchbook balanced across her knees.
He remembered her hands over his as she taught him to knead bread.
He remembered waking injured in this inn and realizing that a stranger had ridden through the cold because he had asked her to help a family she did not know.
Then he imagined those same hands helping plan a robbery.
“You knew the Voss Gang killed my father,” he said.
Martha shook her head quickly. “Not when I was with them. I didn't know about your father until you told me.”
“But after I told you, you knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you still let me believe Amos was just your husband.”
Tears spilled freely down her face now. “I didn't know how to tell you what he had been without telling you what I had been.”
“So you protected yourself.”
“Yes.”
The admission silenced him again.
Martha stepped toward him. “I’m sorry.”
Jonas moved back.
She stopped.
“I know that doesn't fix it,” she said. “I know I don't deserve for it to fix anything. But I need you to know that I am sorry. For what I did then. For lying to you now. For sitting there and listening while you told me about your father when I should have told you the truth.”
Jonas pressed his lips together.
“I wanted to be different,” she continued. “After Amos died, I thought if I worked hard enough here, if I made this place good, if I helped people instead of hurting them, maybe I could become someone else.”
“That's not how a past works.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Her voice broke completely.
Jonas looked at her and felt something inside him splitting cleanly in two.
One part of him saw the frightened young woman she had been, desperate enough for family that she had accepted the wrong one.
That part wanted to understand. It wanted to ask more questions, to know how she had gotten from there to here.
The other part remembered his father's body.
He remembered Reuben and Tobias looking to him for answers he had not had.
He remembered lying awake listening for his brothers' breathing because suddenly he was terrified everyone he loved could disappear.
He remembered years of work and worry that had begun because men from the Voss Gang had decided whatever they wanted mattered more than the lives caught in their path.
Martha had not killed his father.
He understood that.
It did not make this bearable.
“I can't do this,” he said.
Martha's face changed. “Jonas—”
“It's too much.”
“Please.”
“I said it's too much.”
He walked out of the kitchen.
Martha followed him. “Jonas, wait.”
He did not.
He crossed the common room, barely seeing the people gathered there. Cold air struck his face when he opened the front door, and he welcomed it. His chest felt too tight, his thoughts too loud. He needed distance from the inn, from Martha, from everything he had learned.
“Jonas!”
Her footsteps followed him across the yard.
He kept walking.
The stable still smelled faintly of smoke despite two days of clearing and repair. Jonas went inside and reached for his saddle.
Martha came in behind him, breathless. “Please don't leave like this.”
“I need to go.”
“Then let me come with you. Let me explain the rest.”
“I heard enough.”
“You don't understand everything.”
He turned on her. “I understand that you were part of the Voss Gang.”
Martha stopped.
“I understand that you knew what they did to my family, and you let me care about you anyway without telling me the truth.”
Her face crumpled.
Jonas looked away before the sight could weaken him.
He saddled the horse with hands that did not feel steady. His injured leg protested when he put his foot into the stirrup, but he ignored it and swung himself up.
“Jonas.”
He looked down.
Martha stood beside the horse, tears streaking her face.
He wanted to hate her.
It would have been easier if he could.
Instead, he looked at her and still saw the woman by the river. The woman in the kitchen. The woman who had saved him.
That was the worst part.
He turned the horse toward the open door.
“I'm sorry,” Martha whispered.
Jonas could not answer.
He rode out.
Martha's figure grew smaller behind him as he crossed the yard. He kept his eyes ahead. If he looked back again, he did not know whether he would keep going.
So he didn't look.
***
Martha stood in the cold long after the sound of hoofbeats disappeared.
Her chest hurt so badly that breathing seemed to take effort.
She had known this could happen. She had imagined it a hundred times, had lain awake fearing the moment Jonas learned what she had done and looked at her differently.
Knowing it could happen had done nothing to prepare her for the reality.
A small hand slipped into hers.
Martha looked down.
Percy stood beside her.
She had not heard him approach. His face was pale, his eyes shining with tears he was trying desperately not to shed. He looked toward the road where Jonas had disappeared, then back at Martha.
Neither of them spoke.
Percy's fingers tightened around hers.
Martha squeezed back.
That nearly broke her more than anything else.
A slow clap came from the darkness beside the stable.
Martha stiffened.
Silas stepped from the shadows.
“Well,” he said. “That went about as well as expected.”
Percy moved closer to Martha.
Silas's gaze went to her tear-streaked face, and his mouth curved into a smile. “Don't cry now. You brought this on yourself.”
Martha's grief hardened into something else.
She looked down at Percy. “Go inside.”
He shook his head.
“Percy.”
“I don't want to leave you with him.”
Her heart twisted.
“Eliza is inside,” Martha said. “Go help her with the chores. Please.”
Percy looked from her to Silas.
“I'll be all right,” she told him.
He clearly did not believe her, but after another moment he released her hand. “I'll be inside.”
Martha nodded.
Percy walked away slowly, looking back twice before disappearing through the inn door.
Only then did Martha face Silas.
He leaned against one of the newly repaired posts as though he had nothing in the world to worry about.
“You wanted him to know,” Martha said.
Silas shrugged. “I wanted you to understand that you don't get to bury what you did and build yourself a pretty little life on top of it.”
“You've made your point.”
“Have I?”
“Yes. You’ve done enough.”
Silas's smile sharpened. “Didn't look that way from where I was standing.”
Martha wiped the last of the tears from her face.
“I'm going to the sheriff tomorrow evening.”
Silas's expression changed, and she thought she saw something like surprise there.
Only slightly, but she saw it.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
He pushed himself away from the post. “And what exactly are you planning to tell him?”
“Everything.”
Silas stared at her.
Martha's heart pounded, but for the first time since he had arrived in Willow Crossing, she did not feel like backing away from him.
“You think that's going to save you?” he asked.
“No.”
“You tell Crane what you did, he'll put you in a cell right beside me.”
“Maybe.”
“You'll lose the inn.”
Martha looked toward the building.
The west wing had collapsed. The stable had burned. Debts were swallowing what remained. Jonas had just ridden away from her as though he could not bear to remain in the same place.
The life she had spent years trying to protect had already broken apart.
Silas stepped closer. “You really think you're going to walk into the sheriff's office and confess?”
“Yes.”
“You won't.”
“I will.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then you're even more foolish than I thought.”
Martha met his gaze.
“It doesn't matter anymore.”
Silas gave a quiet laugh. “Of course it matters.”
“No.” Her voice shook, but she did not look away. “It doesn't.”
For years, fear had dictated every choice she made. Fear of being recognized. Fear of losing the inn. Fear of prison. Fear that if anyone knew what she had once been, every good thing she had done since would become meaningless.
Most of all, fear of Jonas finding out.
Now he knew.
And he was gone.
Martha swallowed against the ache rising in her throat.
“I've already lost everything,” she said. ”What else is there to lose?”
For once, Silas had nothing to say.