Chapter 26 #2
“She should've told you.”
The words loosened something in Jonas's chest, though not enough to bring relief.
“Especially after you told her about Father,” Reuben continued. “If she knew she cared about you, she should've told you the truth and let you decide what to do with it.”
“That's what I told her.”
“And you were right.”
Jonas stared ahead.
He had expected Reuben to argue. He had expected his brother to tell him that Martha was kind, that she had changed, that none of it mattered because it happened years ago.
Instead, Reuben simply rode beside him.
After a while, Jonas said, “She was afraid I'd leave if I found out.”
“Seems she was right.”
Jonas flinched.
Reuben noticed. “I didn't mean—”
“No. She was.” The admission hurt.
“She knew what would happen if I found out,” Jonas said. “So she didn't tell me.”
“That's not fair to you. But I understand why she'd be afraid.”
Jonas looked at him.
Reuben shrugged slightly. “Understanding isn't the same as saying she was right.”
Jonas thought about that.
He had spent the entire ride home trying to force Martha into one shape or another. Innocent or guilty. Good or bad. The woman he had come to love or the woman who had helped a gang rob people.
Maybe the truth was that she was both.
That did not make it easier.
“I thought she was afraid of caring about someone again,” Jonas said after a while. “Every time she pulled away, I thought it was Amos. I thought she loved him so much that she was afraid of what it meant to care about me.”
“Maybe that was part of it.”
Jonas shook his head. “I kept telling her she could trust me. I told her I wanted to know all of her, good and bad.”
Reuben was quiet.
“She knew things about me I don't tell people,” Jonas continued. “And every time I thought I was getting closer to her, she already knew there was something that could change everything.”
“That sounds like what you're angry about.”
Jonas frowned. “I'm angry about all of it.”
“I know. But that's the part you keep coming back to.”
Jonas started to answer and stopped.
Reuben was right again, which was becoming irritating.
The crimes disturbed him. He didn’t question that. Martha herself had not tried to pretend that she was innocent. She had helped people steal from others. She had aided Amos's escape. She had built a new life after doing things she knew were wrong.
But Jonas had known since the night in the broken kitchen that Martha had a criminal past. He had known she had done something she was ashamed of, and he had chosen to remain close to her.
What he had not known was that her past touched his own.
What he had not known was that she had listened to him speak about his father while carrying that truth.
“I don't know how I'm supposed to trust her now,” Jonas said.
Reuben did not answer immediately. “I don't know either,” he finally said.
Jonas glanced over, one eyebrow raised.
Reuben gave him a tired half smile. “I'm your brother, not a preacher.”
That pulled a short laugh from Jonas before he could stop it.
Reuben smiled, but it faded quickly. “I know what I've seen of her,” he said. “That's all.”
Jonas waited.
“I've seen her take care of people who have nothing to give her. I've seen her let half the town crowd into that inn during a storm and refuse payment because she didn't want anybody freezing on the road. I've seen the way she treats Percy and Eliza.”
Jonas's chest tightened.
“I've seen how she looks at you,” Reuben added.
“That doesn't change what she did.”
“No. It doesn't.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Reuben considered the question thoughtfully, staring out into the distance before bringing his gaze back to his brother. “I'm saying the woman who did those things and the woman you've been spending all this time with are the same person.”
Jonas frowned.
“You don't get to pretend the first one didn't exist,” Reuben continued. “But maybe you shouldn't pretend the second one doesn't either.”
He looked out over the pasture.
He knew what it was like to have someone decide who he was before they knew him. He had seen suspicion in people's faces because of his father's blood and his mother's. He had spent his life being treated as though one part of him had to explain the whole.
But this was different.
Martha had made choices.
Real ones.
People had been hurt because of them, even if she had never intended to hurt anyone herself.
Jonas would not erase that because he loved her.
And he did love her.
The realization came without warning, so clear that he stopped breathing for a moment.
Not could love her.
Not was falling for her.
He loved her.
He had left because of it.
If Martha had meant nothing to him, the truth would have disgusted him and nothing more. He could have walked away and been finished with her before he reached the edge of Willow Crossing.
Instead, he had been riding circles in a frozen pasture for hours because his heart felt as though someone had torn it open.
Reuben was watching him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You're staring.”
“I was waiting to see if you were going to say something.”
Jonas looked away. “I don't have anything to say.”
“That's a first.”
Jonas gave him a flat look.
Reuben grinned briefly, then sobered. “You don't have to decide anything tonight.”
“I know.”
“You don't have to forgive her tonight either.”
“I know.”
“And you don't have to stop being angry just because she had reasons for doing what she did.”
Jonas's shoulders loosened slightly.
He had not realized how badly he needed someone to say that.
Martha's childhood explained things. Her loneliness explained things. Amos deceiving her explained how she first became tangled with the gang.
None of those things made the choices that followed disappear.
But perhaps explanation did not have to be absolution.
Perhaps he could understand why Martha had done something and still believe she had been wrong.
Perhaps he could love her and still be hurt by her.
Jonas rubbed a hand over his face.
“I need time.”
“Then take it.”
“I don't know how much.”
Reuben shrugged. “Didn't know there was a rule.”
Jonas looked toward the house. A lamp still burned in one of the windows. Tobias had probably wondered where both of them had gone by now.
“What would you do?” Jonas asked.
Reuben's eyebrows rose. “You're asking me?”
“I can change my mind and not ask you anything,” Jonas grumbled.
“I’m just out here to enjoy the ride.”
“Reuben.”
His brother's amusement faded. He thought for a moment before answering.
“I'd figure out what I'm actually angry about before I decided what to do with it.”
Jonas considered that.
“And I'd probably stomp around and glower some more first,” Reuben added.
“There it is.”
“You asked.”
Jonas shook his head.
They turned their horses toward home.
The ride back across the pasture felt shorter, though Jonas knew nothing had been solved. Martha had still lied to him. She had still helped the Voss Gang. She had still allowed him to care for her while withholding something she knew might have changed his choice.
He was not ready to forgive that.
He was not even sure what forgiveness would look like.
But Reuben had pulled one thing out of the knot in his chest and laid it where Jonas could finally see it clearly.
Martha had not killed his father.
She had not helped kill him.
She had not been part of the Voss Gang when it happened.
That grief belonged elsewhere.
Jonas would not put it on her simply because her past made it easy to do so.
He thought of Martha standing in the stable as he rode away. He remembered the tears on her face and the way she had whispered that she was sorry.
Part of him wanted to turn his horse around even now.
He didn't.
Love was still there.
So was anger.
So was hurt.
Jonas could not yet see how all three could exist together without tearing him apart.
For tonight, they would have to.