‘That was the plan! I was going to get the money for our farm!’ he yells, his fists clenched at his sides, his face red. I have never seen him look so mad. ‘That was always the plan!’
‘I can’t live that way! And I can’t go back now, not after—’ I stop before I say too much.
‘Why can’t you?’ he asks.
‘You think I can go home looking like this? After I already enlisted? You think your folks will have me when I just up and left and didn’t say a thing about where I was going?’
Jeremiah shakes his head. ‘This is too much. You’ve got to go home. You can’t run about doing whatever you please.’
‘Is that it, then? You tell me what to do now? You ain’t listened to me one word when I said I didn’t want you doing this thing, so I don’t see why I’ve got to do what you say neither.’
‘But you can’t stay here! You’re a—you’re not—’ He lowers his voice to a hiss. ‘You’re a married woman, for Christ’s sake!’
‘I don’t see what being married has got to do with it, save for me wanting to be with my husband.’
He kicks a frozen clod of mud, making it go to pieces in the air. ‘I want you safe!’
I think on Eli shoving me down, his hand wrenching, stitches ripping, fingers digging into my skin. I don’t know how to say those things to Jeremiah. I don’t want to see how it changes the way he looks at me. I don’t want to see him take on the weight of knowing the whole of it.
So I say something else.
‘It’s too hard with you gone. What friends have I got with you all leaving me?’
‘Did you ever even think about the boys? You think they’ll want you here? You think they’ll be happy you’ve come?’ He has got himself worked up so he can’t hear a thing I say.
‘Are you saying they ain’t real friends to me? Is that it?’
‘This don’t have a thing to do with friendship! Your Papa—I don’t know what he was thinking, letting you get ideas—’
‘You keep my Papa out of this. I’m not even his farmhand any more. He’s got himself Isaac Lewis for that now. And I ain’t keeping house for just myself on your Pa’s farm, your Ma coming and making me feel like something less.’
‘That ain’t what she’s—She’s never called you something less! It’s the way you—’
‘Don’t! Don’t you defend her! You don’t know what it is, being there all lonesome and getting told I’ve got to do mending and stay inside and—You’ve never seen the way she looks at me! You never hear!’
‘Rosetta, it ain’t like that.’
‘It is! I can’t do it! I can’t be your wife if you ain’t there!’ My voice is too loud but I can’t stop it. I look around us quick, but no one’s close enough to hear me call myself wife.
‘You’re not safe here!’ Jeremiah says.
‘This don’t seem so dangerous,’ I say, throwing my arm out to the empty field. ‘You see any Rebels here?’
‘You don’t belong here! Can’t you see that? And I can’t be worrying about you all the time,’ Jeremiah says.
‘Is that what I am to you? A worry? You think you’re the only one that worries?’
Jeremiah looks down. There is hurt and something harsh about his air that I ain’t ever seen in him before.
‘This ain’t good.’ He is done arguing.
‘How? How ain’t it good? Me being with you?’
His voice is level. ‘You don’t make a lick of sense.’
‘You already knew that, and you married me anyway,’ I say.
‘You come with me,’ he says, and grabs my elbow. ‘We’ve got to fix things.’
JEREMIAH TAKES OFF across the field, but instead of going toward the tents, or for Captain Chalmers, we skirt the trees at the edge of camp until we are far enough that the sounds of men talking and laughing and the smell of campfires fade. Then Jeremiah veers into the woods. I have hardly stepped from the parade ground to the gritty snow in the shade when he turns, grabs my shoulders, and kisses me, his lips rough and chapped. It ain’t a nice kiss. It is something else, but I forget everything, just for a moment. Then I remember and shove him off.
‘That don’t fix anything,’ I tell him, looking all around. ‘It’s a good thing there ain’t a soul to see us.’
‘There ain’t a good fix for what you’ve done,’ Jeremiah says, and takes my hand, marching farther into the trees until he finds a log sheltered by a thicket of sticks and branches. He hauls me down next to him, but he don’t talk. Just sits there, staring off into space, his jaw tight, his thigh warm against mine.
Finally he takes my hat from my head and looks me over.
‘What did you do to your hair?’ he says, like that is the most important thing, and reaches to touch where it stops above my ears. I should pull back but I can’t. I’m too glad for this little touch.
‘You look—’
‘Don’t you be mean,’ I say, and cross my arms over my chest. ‘It can’t be helped now.’
‘I ain’t being mean,’ he says. ‘You look … it looks different, is all.’