“That’s what my mother said.”
Jonah nodded.
“That part is true.”
“What part isn’t?”
“The axle had been cut.”
Ruth felt the room tilt.
She sat again.
“No.”
“I saw it.”
“No.”
“Ruth.”
“No.”
Her voice rose.
“My mother said it broke.”
“She may have believed that.”
Ruth looked at him.
“You’re saying someone killed my father.”
“I’m saying the axle was intentionally weakened.”
“Who?”
“I never proved it.”
“Harcourt?”
Jonah did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Ruth stood again.
“You married me because of this.”
His face tightened.
“No.”
“You saw my name.”
“You knew my father.”
“You knew the Harcourts had ruined me.”
“And suddenly you appeared with an offer of marriage.”
“Ruth.”
“Was I payment?”
“No.”
“A promise?”
“No.”
“A dead man’s daughter you felt responsible for?”
Jonah’s silence lasted half a second too long.
Ruth laughed.
The sound broke.
“There.”
“Listen to me.”
“No.”
She walked toward the trunk.
Kneeled.
The wedding gown spread around her.
Jonah took one step.
She turned.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Ruth touched the brass plate.
“My father repaired this himself.”
Jonah nodded.
“How do you know?”
“He repaired everything with that same ugly plate.”
Despite herself, Ruth looked at him.
Jonah almost smiled.
“Daniel was a terrible carpenter.”
“He was not.”
“He was.”
“He built my cradle.”
“Then it was probably crooked.”
“It was not.”
“You remember?”
“No.”
“Then I’m ahead.”
Her mouth twitched.
Anger returned quickly.
“You still haven’t explained why you married me.”
Jonah looked at the floor.
Then the bed.
Then her.
Finally:
“I owed your father my life.”
Ruth went still.
“There it is.”
“That is not the whole answer.”
“But it is an answer.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Jonah leaned against the wall.
“Winter survey.”
“Storm came early.”
“I crossed ice I shouldn’t have.”
“Went through.”
Ruth pictured him at seventeen.
Younger.
Not yet enormous perhaps, though probably already difficult to pull from frozen water.
“Daniel got me out.”
“How?”
“Rope.”
“Tree.”
“Nearly killed himself.”
Ruth looked down at the trunk.
Jonah continued.
“We spent two nights in a line shack.”
“I had fever.”
“He kept me alive.”
“When I recovered, he told me something.”
“What?”
Jonah smiled faintly.
“He said if I ever repaid him by doing anything stupid, he would drag me back onto the ice and leave me there.”
Ruth almost laughed.
That sounded like something her father might have said.
She hated that Jonah knew a version of him she did not.