"You are my wife, Clara. They do not get to speak to you that way. They speak the truth," Eli, she said, looking away toward the saloon down the street. The piano music drifted out, tiny and hollow. I worked where men drank.
I poured the whiskey. I smiled when they wanted me to smile. That is who I was. It is not who you are, Eli said stubbornly. You do not know who I am, she snapped, the frustration finally bubbling over.
I saw a man die, Eli. In that place, I saw a man shot for spilling a drink. And I saw the sheriff arrest the boy who swept the floors because the shooter bought the law a round of drinks. I learned that truth does not matter. Only power matters.
You fighting a clerk for a bag of beans does not change that. Eli looked at her for a long time. Maybe not, but I will not let them starve us out. That night, the silence in the cabin was different. It was heavy with the things they had almost said.
Eli sat by the fire, mending a tear in one of Clara's work gloves. He used a thick needle and heavy thread, his large fingers moving with surprising delicacy. "Chara was at the stove, stirring a stew. " She watched him. "My father," Eli said suddenly into the quiet. "He was a loud man.
He liked to hear his own voice, and he liked the sound of his fist hitting things. " Clara stopped stirring. "He used to hit my mother," Eli continued, not looking up from the glove. "Not when he was drunk. When he was sober, he liked the control. One day when I was 16, he raised a shovel to her because she had let the fire go out.
Eli pulled the thread tight, biting off the end. I hit him, Eli said. I took a pitchfork handle and I hit him. I broke his arm. And then I hit him again and again.
I wanted to kill him. Clara, I stood over him and I felt good. I felt strong. He looked up at her then and his eyes were full of a terrified grief. I stopped but the feeling it was there the concaid blood.
It is violent. That is why I am quiet. That is why I do not fight unless I have to. I am afraid that if I start I will not be able to stop. I am afraid I am him.
Claraara left the stove. She walked to his chair and took the mended glove from his hand. She looked at the stitching. It was neat, even, and strong. A man who is afraid of his own violence is not a monster.
Eli, she said softly. A monster does not care. She put the glove on. It fit perfectly. Thank you, she said.