Orson had never been physically frightening, but through the slow accumulated weight of his certainty, that she was wrong about everything, that her judgment was poor, that whatever she'd managed to do was less than what anyone competent would have done. That particular voice had gotten quieter since November. She realized it sitting at the kitchen table at Red Spur Ranch, which surprised her. She hadn't noticed it getting quieter. She'd noticed other things.
The children settling, her own competence being used rather than dismissed, the gradual unfamiliar sensation of being in a place where the work she did was understood to matter. But she hadn't noticed until right now. That Orson's voice in the back of her head had faded down to something she could almost not hear. She was going to need to keep it that way. Let Foss document everything, she said.
I'll write down every date I remember. I'll give him the note. She'd kept the note. She didn't know why she'd kept it. Some instinct that had made her fold it and put it in the bottom of the one bag she'd packed.
And now she understood what the instinct had been for. Whatever he needs. Bramwell nodded. And if Orson comes here, she said, I'll handle it. Miriam, I'll handle it, she said again clearly.
Not harshly, but with a finality that she meant him to understand. I appreciate everything you've done. I appreciate that you're sitting here right now, but this is my situation and my children. And when Orson comes, if Orson comes, I need to be the one who faces him. Not behind you.
Not behind anyone. He looked at her for a long moment. I understand that, he said. Do you? Yes.
He said it without offense. I'm not going to stand between you and your own life, Miriam. That's not that's not what I want to do. He paused. But I'm not going to pretend I don't care what happens either.
So, if you'll let me stand next to you, I'll do that. " She looked at him. The lamp between them threw a warm, unsteady light, and outside the Montana February pressed against the walls of the house, and somewhere above them six children were sleeping in warm rooms. And this man across from her had said exactly the right thing in exactly the right way, and she was going to need a moment before she trusted herself to respond to it. "Next to, " she said finally.