Then his pencil began moving.
I was riding with my father. Heard a shot. Horse threw me.
He paused.
Blood from ear.
Another pause.
Could still hear afterward.
Rosalie’s breath caught.
She pointed at the final sentence.
“You could hear?”
He read her lips.
Nodded.
His pencil continued.
Not well. But yes.
Rosalie moved closer.
After surgery?
Gideon’s hand tightened around the pencil.
Nothing.
The cabin seemed suddenly much colder.
Rosalie stared at the signature again.
Her father had operated on Gideon.
Before that operation, Gideon still possessed some hearing.
Afterward, he had none.
At least not in the damaged ear.
She wrote:
What did your father say?
Gideon’s
jaw flexed.
He said accident destroyed it.
And your mother?
His expression softened.
She blamed herself for letting Ashford operate.
Rosalie closed her eyes.
For years she had believed her mother, Eleanor, was the only decent person in the Ashford household.
Eleanor had bandaged neighbors without payment, fed hungry travelers through the back kitchen, and occasionally stood between Rosalie and Silas when his temper became dangerous.
She had died when Rosalie was sixteen.
Whatever secrets she had known had gone into the ground with her.
Or so Rosalie had believed.
Gideon tapped the table.
He had written another sentence.
Your father knows we’re married?
Rosalie almost laughed.
The sound came out broken.
“He arranged it.”
She wrote the words instead.
He took your fifty dollars.
Gideon’s face changed.
Slowly.
Completely.
He stared at her.
Then wrote:
What fifty dollars?
Rosalie stopped breathing.
She reread the sentence.
The money you gave
him.
Gideon shook his head.
Rosalie’s pulse began hammering.
