knife’s metal glowing red, then orange. Outside, the windows rattled with the force of the wind, and I found myself wishing that Red and I weren’t quite so alone. As I stared at the heated metal, I acknowledged to myself that behind all my practical excuses, there was another, more complicated reason why I hadn’t worn Red’s ring: I had been ambivalent about getting remarried so quickly. I’d made one mistake. I hadn’t wanted to make another.
And yes, I was still a little ambivalent. Maybe more than a little. Maybe that’s why you used to need a blood test to get a marriage license. If more marriages involved bloodletting, there would probably be far fewer divorces. “You know,” I said, hesitantly, “I’m not sure exactly what you have in mind here, but branding, tattoos—they’re really not my thing.”
I saw something flicker in Red’s eyes, as if he were doing a rapid calculation in his head. “You don’t need to receive the symbols, if you don’t want to. We could just draw a token amount of blood.”
I swallowed. “I don’t suppose we could just make love?”
Red shook his head. “This is a sacred rite.” His voice was oddly flat, as though he were disappointed in me. I realized that although Red had passed my test, I was failing his. In all the time I had been trying to decide whether or not Red was right for me, I had never considered that he might decide I was not right for him.
“What are you going to do?”
“Marry you. The Limmikin way. We mingle our blood.” He stood there, self-contained, not attempting to convince me by word or touch, even though he must have known that either would have pushed me over the edge. I felt a wave of desire for him so strong that my arms ached to reach out for him, but I hesitated. My mother’s question came back to me: Is Red Mallin really the man you want to father your children?
My body’s answer was a resounding yes. The very thought of it made my womb contract in longing. And it was possible that we’d already made me pregnant. But as I’d told Hunter, above the neck was where I made decisions. In my head, I went through my mother’s objections: That man would do anything to keep you. Lie, steal, cheat, kill. On the other hand, my mother had been wrong about his primitive sense of loyalty: I had, indeed, given in to Hunter, and Red had forgiven me.
Unless this was a trick, and now Red intended to hurt or disfigure me as payback. I stared into his eyes, their heated gold shading into hazel as the blade cooled and I did not hold out my arm. He remained still a moment longer, and then folded the knife back into itself while his face closed down. “It’s all right, Doc,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. “I don’t blame you one little bit.”
An image came to me, then: Red, using that knife to whittle designs into a cradle while I sat in a rocking chair by the fire, my hands on the heavy moon of my belly.
“Red.”
He looked at me, his face resigned. “I don’t need to hear the explanation. I get it.”
I held out my left arm. “I want to do it. Marry me.”
Red’s eyed widened for a moment, and then he shook his head. There were shadows under his eyes, and in them. “No, Doc, you don’t. You just don’t want to disappoint me, and that’s real sweet of you, but it’s not enough. If you do this with doubt in your heart, it won’t work.”
Whatever my earlier reservations had been, I was now overcome by the conviction that it was this man, soft-spoken and wry and capable, who should be the father of my children.
For a moment, I wondered whether I could trust myself. After all, I hadn’t just betrayed Red with Hunter, I’d betrayed myself. Maybe this choice, like that one, could be influenced by hormones that were clamoring for mating and breeding. But after looking at that possibility directly, I dismissed it. We can never know our own minds completely, but in all my life, I had never felt more certain of the course I should take. When I had taken my vows with Hunter, I had been half-delirious with happiness while Hunter had faced the officiating bureaucrat with a bemused smile. At the time, I had thought, It doesn’t feel real.