Chapter 4: The Woodshed

I started to laugh.

I could not help it.

I was naked on a rug with the eldest brother's weight still on me.

The middle one stood in the open door with his arms full of firewood.

"Tomorrow, Alexis," I said. "Tonight I want to sleep in a bed."

"I'm very good at waiting."

"You're terrible at it."

"I'm terrible at it," he agreed cheerfully, and kicked the door shut behind him.

He stacked the birch by the stove, tossed the quilt over Remy's bare back and my legs, and went up the loft ladder, whistling.

Hugo followed him up without a word.

He stopped on the third rung, looked at the red mark on my shoulder, and went the color of a beet.

I slept in the big bed that night with Remy's arm heavy across my waist.

I woke at dawn with his seed still warm between my thighs, and I lay there for a long minute and let myself feel it.

Then I got up, found my jeans and one of Remy's flannel shirts, and went out looking for the middle brother.

The woodshed stood behind the cabin, a lean-to with a tin roof and a wall of split birch stacked to the rafters.

Alexis was inside with an axe across his knees and a whetstone in his hand.

He had taken his coat off.

His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and his forearms were corded and flecked with sawdust.

"You're up," he said, and grinned.

"Why are you sharpening an axe at six in the morning?"

"It gives me something to hold."

I closed the shed door behind me and leaned back against it.

I had been waiting to say this for six years, and I said it plainly.

"You left every room I walked into."

His hand stopped on the stone.

"Not just you. All three of you. For six years."

I made myself keep my voice level.

"I'd come in, and Remy would find a reason to be in the yard. Hugo would find his shoes. You'd say something funny and go."

"Mireille," he said.

"I thought you hated me. I thought I wasn't good enough for your brother and you all knew it."

Alexis put the axe down.

He stood up slowly, brushing the sawdust off his jeans, and for once he was not smiling at all.

"That is not what it was," he said.

"Then tell me what it was."

"Etienne used to laugh at the dinner table. You laughed with him."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

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