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.
