I wasn’t sure why I lied to her. I just didn’t want to tell her the whole truth. She had enough problems. “I’ll be all right.”

She took the beer from my hand and sipped. She was in a towel, her hair still wet. I wanted to wrap her into me and promise that I’d never let go. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, that I would spend the rest of my life just like this. Instead, I put one inadequate arm around her shoulder, and even that felt like a stranger’s arm. “I love this place,” I told her, and she accepted my words without comment. It was the closest I could come to sharing the truth of my feelings for her, and in some small way she knew this. Reality, however, had never been so simple.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, and I nodded. “Let’s go to the kitchen.” We went into the kitchen and she pulled a robe from the laundry room on the way. “Go put your pants on,” she told me. “You can do anything you want naked except sit at my table.” She popped me on the rear as I passed by.

She had a trestle table that dated back to the 1800s. It was dented and scarred. Sitting at it, we ate ham and cheese and spoke of little things. I drank another beer. I told her about Ezra’s safe and the missing gun. She hesitated for a minute and then asked me how he died. Two bullets to the head, I told her, and she looked out the window.

“Do you feel any different?” she finally asked.

“I don’t understand.”

She looked at me then. “Does your life feel any different now that Ezra is dead and gone?” I didn’t know what she meant and told her so. She didn’t speak for awhile, and I realized she was debating whether or not to continue. “Are you happy?” she finally asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it in awhile.” There was something in her eyes. “What are you getting at, Vanessa?”

She sighed. “I don’t think you’re living your life, Jackson, not for a long time now.”

I grew still and tense. “Whose, then?”

“You know whose.” Her voice was soft and she shied away as if afraid I might hit her.

“No, Vanessa, I don’t.” I was getting angry and didn’t know why-didn’t want to know why. Denial was a weapon; it killed truth, numbed the mind, and I was a junkie. Part of me recognized this, the same part that knew where she was going, but I ignored that part. That part hurt.

“Damn it, Jackson. I’m trying to help.”

“Are you?” I demanded. “Who are you trying to help? Me or you?”

“That is not fair,” she said. I knew she was right, but I didn’t care. She was taking me places I didn’t want to go. “It’s you I’m worried about. It’s always you!”

“Goddamn it, Vanessa. That’s too much pressure. I’ve never asked for things to be the way they are. They just are.”

“That is your problem.”

I stared at her.

“Things never just are. We make choices, actively or not. You can affect the world, Jackson. Ezra’s dead. Don’t you feel that?”

“So we’re back to Ezra,” I said.

“We never left him. And that’s the problem. You’ve never left him. You’ve been living his life for more than twenty years, and you’ve never seen it.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, and in that instant her face seemed to transform. She was like the rest after all. “No,” I said. “Not true.”

“Yes.” She tried to take my hand, but I pulled it back just in time.

“That is not fucking true!” I yelled.

“Why did you marry Barbara?” she demanded, and there was a stoic calm in her voice.

“What?”

“Why Barbara? Why not me?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do know. And always have.”

“You’re not making sense.” I watched as she came out of her seat, hands on the table that had fed her family for generations. She leaned closer, and I noticed that her nostrils were flared.

“You listen to me, Jackson, and you listen well, because I swear to God that I will never say this again. But I need it to be said. Ten years ago, you told me you loved me. You damn well meant it, too. Then you married Barbara. Now I want you to tell me why.”

I rocked back in my chair, felt my defensiveness, but couldn’t do anything about it. My arms crossed over my chest as if to protect my heart. My head rang, and I rubbed at my temples, but the sudden pain refused to die.

“You married Barbara because Ezra told you to.” She slapped her palm down on the table and I thought it sounded like a bone breaking. “Admit it. One time, Jackson, and I’ll never mention it again. You live Ezra’s life, his choices. Barbara’s family has a name; she went to the right schools, had the right friends. It’s true. Admit it. Damn it, Jackson, be a man.”

“No!” I shouted, suddenly on my feet. “I won’t admit it because it’s not true.” I spun from the table and pounded upstairs to get the rest of my clothes and my keys. She was wrong and I refused to take any more. Her voice followed me.

“What about children?” she shouted. “You always wanted children!”

“Shut up, Vanessa!” My voice broke as I said it. I knew that she did not deserve it, but I could not yell loudly enough.

“Whose idea was that? Huh? Whose idea, Jackson? You used to talk about it all the time. Lots of kids! That’s what you always planned-a houseful of them, a family to raise right, so you could be the father you wanted Ezra to be. Damn it, Jackson. Don’t run away from this. It’s too important!”

I ignored her. My shirt was on the floor and I found my keys under the bed. I pulled my shoes on without socks. The house was hot, stifling; I had to get out. I shouldn’t have come at all.

She was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

“Don’t leave,” she said. “Not like this.”

Her voice and eyes were both soft, but it wasn’t going to work. “Let me by,” I told her. She stepped onto the first step, crowding me. Looking down, I saw the part in her hair, the light freckles on the bridge of her nose, eyes that looked too wide to be innocent.

“Please,” she said. “Please, Jackson. I’m sorry. I take it back. Please don’t go.”

“Step aside, Vanessa.” The pain in her face cut me, but I couldn’t stop. This was her fight, not mine.

“Jackson, please. It’s been so long. I can’t lose you again. Stay. Have another beer.” She reached for my hand.

The stairs were tilting; I couldn’t catch my breath, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I needed air, needed to get out. I shook my hand free and pushed past her.

“I shouldn’t have come,” I said, hitting the screen door so hard, it slammed against the house.

I felt her behind me, heard her steps on the porch and then on the gravel. Her breath was loud, and I knew that if I turned, I would see tears. So I didn’t turn; I marched on, and she caught me at the car.

“Don’t go,” she said.

I didn’t turn around. She put one hand on my shoulder, the other on the side of my neck, where heat still burned. She laid her face upon my back, and I hesitated. I wanted no one thing in my life more than to stay, but she wanted too much. Truth was not my friend.

“Please don’t make me beg,” she said, and I knew how much the words cost her. But I didn’t turn around; I couldn’t-one look at her and I would stay. And I wanted to; that’s what killed me. If possible, I would never leave, but I needed my anger. I couldn’t give it up.

“I’m sorry, Vanessa. I shouldn’t have come at all.”

She didn’t try to stop me as I got into the car. I backed away without looking at her. I drove too fast, wheels loose in the gravel. I kept my eyes down and didn’t look up until I was almost to the bend in the road. Then I saw her in the mirror, on her knees in the dust, face buried in her rough farm-girl hands. She looked small. She looked crushed.

My anger drained away and left me shaken to the core. She was the only woman I’d ever loved, and this was all she had of me, a palmful of dusty tears.

Sweet Lord, I thought. What have I done?