Perhaps it was the final story he needed to tell himself.
Caleb never visited him.
Silas sent two letters from custody.
Caleb burned the first unopened.
He kept the second for three days before burning that one too.
“You don’t want to know what he says?” Mara asked.
“No.”
“Sure?”
Caleb watched the paper curl inside the stove.
“I spent forty years not knowing who my father was.”
He looked at Mara.
“Turns out that was the kinder version.”
Chapter 19: Ruth
The truth about Ruth was harder.
Caleb had loved her.
Then learned she had lied to him.
Then learned why.
Grief did not know where to stand.
Some mornings he defended her fiercely.
Other days he became angry at a dead woman for making choices on his behalf.
Mara never told him which feeling was correct.
One evening they sat on the porch looking across the partially uncovered yard.
“I keep trying to decide whether she should’ve told me.”
Mara waited.
“If she had?”
“I would’ve confronted Crowe.”
“Yes.”
“Probably Pike too.”
“Yes.”
“And gotten myself killed.”
“Possible.”
Caleb looked toward the remaining stones.
“So she was right.”
Mara shook her head.
“She was frightened.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
“She made the best decisions she could see.”
Caleb considered that.
Mara continued.
“That doesn’t mean they were the only decisions.”
He appreciated her for saying it.
Ruth did not become a saint because she died.
She had been a young woman trapped by a powerful father, a corrupt sheriff, a dangerous secret, and a husband she loved enough to fear telling the truth.
Her choices hurt Caleb.
They also saved evidence that eventually freed dozens of other people from Crowe.
Both facts deserved room.
Chapter 20: The Last Stones
The following spring, Caleb began removing the remaining stones.
Not all of them.
He left a narrow line curving from the porch toward the garden.
Mara found him there one morning holding a pale river stone.
“I thought you wanted them gone.”
“I did.”
“And now?”
He rolled the stone between his palms.
“I spent three years thinking this yard was where Ruth went to avoid me.”
Mara sat beside him.
“Then I thought it was where she hid lies.”
He looked toward the vegetable beds.
“Now I think it was the only safe place she had to tell the truth.”
Mara leaned against his shoulder.