Chapter 20: Across the Road

Orson's POV

I left the barn at four in the morning with Martha's push mower and a bucket of asters.

The Hollowmere churchyard is a mile down the county road, and I walked it in the dark.

For thirty days I had never walked alone.

Miranda had been in every step, her mood changing under my feet, her small lists and worries and the weather inside her.

Now there was only me on the road, and the sound of my own boots.

It was a clean, flat quiet, and I had been afraid of it.

I had been afraid that when she took herself back I would find out nothing was left that belonged to me.

I stopped at the churchyard gate and checked.

I thought about her.

I thought about her hands on the apple crates, and the stubborn set of her chin, and the sound she made when the toast burned.

The wanting came up in me, plain and strong.

It was not her wanting.

It was mine.

I had known her face for thirteen years.

I had looked at it across a green and a cider mill and a dinner table, and called what I felt a plan, a seat, a signature.

I stood with my hand on the iron gate and let myself say it plainly.

I love her.

I had said it at the Stone with the moon on my back.

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