One word.
Immediate.
Angry that he has to say it. Hurt that I have to ask.
I believe him. Of course I believe him.
He was on the road to Oregon. He was coming here. He had blood on his hands once, but not this.
Not this.
“I had to ask,” I say.
“I know.”
“Did they?”
His eyes move past me. Toward Hot Mama.
I follow his gaze.
She stands near the picnic table with a glass of whiskey in her hand, red mouth curved faintly, eyes on the fire like nothing in the world has changed.
Then her gaze meets mine. She lifts the glass one inch. Not a toast. Not a confession. Something older.
Worse.
I can’t breathe.
“Derby,” I whisper.
“I don’t know.”
But he doesn’t say no. Because he can’t. Because the answer is written all over Hot Mama’s smile and the sudden looseness in Lottie’s shoulders when I imagine someone calling her with the news. It’s written in the Queens’ code. In rule two. No woman leaves with the man she ran from. It’s written in the way this place feels warm and armed and ancient with female rage.
I press a hand to my mouth.
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“I wanted him to stop.”
Derby’s voice goes rough. “Now he has.”
A sob tears out of me.
Not easy grief. Not joy. Something ugly made from both.
Derby pulls me into him, and this time I let him. My face presses against his chest. His arms come around me, one hand in my hair, the other firm at my back. The song keeps playing because the world is cruel that way.
“Finger Fucking Sally?” the song says.
Women keep laughing softly somewhere. Kids sleep. Fire burns.