a gun to my head. I’m weak. You are strong. You love this land and this life in a way I never could.
Tell my parents and my children I love them. You are all better off without me. Please, don’t look for me. I don’t want to be found. I don’t know where I’m going anyway.
R
Elsa couldn’t even cry.
Heartache had been a part of her life so long it had become as familiar as the color of her hair or the slight curve in her spine. Sometimes it was the lens through which she viewed her world and sometimes it was the blindfold she wore so she didn’t see. But it was always there. She knew it was her own fault, somehow, her doing, even though in all her desperate musings for the foundation of it, she’d never been able to see the flaw in herself that had proven to be so defining. Her parents had seen it. Her father, certainly. And her younger, more beautiful sisters, too. They had all sensed the lack in Elsa. Loreda certainly saw it.
Everyone—including Elsa—had assumed she would live an apologetic life, hidden among the needs of other, more vibrant people. The caretaker, the tender, the woman left behind to keep the home fires burning.
And then she had met Rafe.
Her handsome, charming, moody husband.
“Hold your head up,” she said out loud.
She had children to think about. Two small people who needed to be comforted in the wake of their father’s betrayal.
Children who would grow up knowing that their father had abandoned them at this tender time.
Children who, like Elsa, would be shaped by heartache.
* * *
BY THE TIME ELSA got back to the farm, she felt as if she were a machine slowly breaking down. Her family was in the house, bustling about. Rose and Loreda were in the kitchen, making pasta, and Ant and Tony were in the sitting room, rubbing oil into the straps of a leather harness.
The children’s lives would never be the same after today. Their opinions of everything would change, but especially their opinions of themselves, of the durability of love and the truth of their family. They would know forever that their father hadn’t loved their mother—or them—enough to stay with them through hard times.
What did a good mother do in this circumstance? Did she tell the harsh, ugly truth?
Or was a lie better?
If Elsa lied to protect her children from Rafe’s selfishness and to protect Rafe from their resentment, it might be a long while before the truth came out, if it ever did.
Elsa walked past Tony and Ant in the sitting room and went into the kitchen, where her daughter was working the pasta dough on the flour-dusted table. Elsa squeezed her daughter’s thin shoulder. It was all she could do not to pull her into her arms for a fierce hug, but frankly, Elsa couldn’t handle another rejection right now.
Loreda pulled away. “Where’s Daddy?”
“Yeah,” Ant said from the sitting room, “where is he? I wanna show him the arrowhead Grandpa and I found.”
Rose was at the stove, adding salt to a pot filled with water. She looked at Elsa and turned off the burner.
“Have you been crying?” Loreda asked.
“It’s just watery eyes from all the dust,” Elsa said, forcing a tight smile. “Can you kids go look for potatoes? I need to talk to Grandma and Grandpa.”
“Now?” Loreda whined. “I hate doing that.”
“Now,” Elsa said. “Take your brother.”
“Come on, Ant,” Loreda said, pushing the dough away from her, “let’s go root through the dirt like pigs.”
Ant giggled. “I like bein’ a pig.”
“You would.”
The kids shuffled out of the house and banged the door shut behind them.
Rose stared at Elsa. “You’re scaring me.”
Elsa headed into the sitting room, went straight to Tony’s bottle of rye, and poured herself a drink.
It tasted awful enough that she poured a second one and drank that, too.
“Madonna mia,” Rose said quietly. “I have never seen you take one drink in all these years, and now you take two.”
Rose came up behind Elsa, put a hand on her shoulder.
“Elsa,” Tony said, putting the harness aside and standing up. “What is it?”
“It’s Rafe.”
“Rafe?” Rose frowned.
“He left,” Elsa said.
“Rafe left?” Tony said. “To go where?”
“He left,” Elsa said tiredly.
“Back to that damn tavern?” Tony said. “I told him—”
“No,” Elsa said. “He left Lonesome Tree. On a train. Or so I’m told.”
Rose stared at Elsa. “He left? No. He wouldn’t do that. I know he’s unhappy, but…”
“For God’s sake, Rose,” Tony said. “We are