Trigger warning (Spoiler Alert!! Do not read this trigger warning if you don’t want spoilers!!): This chapter contains an account of sexual assault, domestic violence and infanticide.

 

Heidi, my Squirrel, sits up late that night after our talk. She eats her hash and I go back to work putting the finishing touches on her new coat and boots. When she rises to go to the outhouse, I stop her to present my gifts.

“These will do for now,” I say, pulling the boots on for her. “Tomorrow I’ll stitch rawhide to the bottom and line them in rabbit fur.”

“You made these so quickly,” she says, awestruck, and I feel just the faintest prick of pride deep in my chest.

“Wait here a minute,” I say, rising from my chair. “I’ll shovel a pathway for you.”

 

Days pass. Between tending Heidi, preparing meals, shoveling out pathways from the cabin to the outhouse, woodshed and stable, caring for the horse, chickens, hides and putting the final winterizing touches on the cabin, by the time evening comes around, I’m good and exhausted. But not so exhausted that I fail to appreciate the Squirrel’s company.

As is my custom, with the onset of winter I pull the novels out of my chest. I own several which I’ve read through dozens of times. In winters past, they were my only solace. Now at Heidi’s quiet, pensive request, I am pleased to read to her out of them each night.

After so many years of disuse, like any other muscle my vocal chords are weak. I can’t read loudly or for very long, but she appreciates my efforts. For her, stuck inside most of the day with a broken arm, it provides a much needed escape, and I am happy to give it to her.

She asks to see the books. Quietly she leafs through the pages, touching the words lightly with her fingertips. If there happens to be a picture, she stares at it for hours, like a child, filled with wonder.

One afternoon I come inside to find her scratching with a large splinter of wood in the ash in front of the fireplace. The shapes she makes vaguely resemble letters.

“Are you writing something?”

“Hm? Oh, no, I… don’t know how to write,” she answers quietly.

“Not even your name?”

She shakes her head.

I walk over and squat beside her in front of the fire. Carefully, I scratch out the letters for her name.

H-E-I-D-I.

Reverently, she holds out her hand and traces the air over the letters with her fingers.

“I wish… I wish I could have learned.”

“Why can’t you?”

She looks up at me, startled by the notion. “Well, I’m stupid,” she answers artlessly.

“You aren’t stupid.”

“But I am. Greg always—” she cuts herself off. Blanches.

That man. Greg Philips. His memory is a shadow that follows her even now. The thought fills me with fury. Resentment.

“Why did you marry him?”

She stares at me coldly, as though I’ve broken some sort of unspoken rule that stood between us by asking this question.

Why? It’s obvious how she feels about her husband. Like it’s obvious what he put her through. So why? I have to know why she’s married to a man like that.

But the Squirrel does not answer.

Frustration grips me. Anger, with her husband or her, or just with myself, I do not know.

I rise abruptly and stalk out of the cabin, leaving her alone before the fireplace.

Think I’ll split some more firewood…

 

For dinner that night I make venison steak with mushroom ketchup and omelets. Though she comes to sit beside me at the table, the Squirrel hardly touches her food. I’ve already cut her steak, but I take her plate to cut it again so the pieces are even smaller and easier to eat. I pass it back to her.

She spears a cold piece of meat with her fork and considers it a long time. Then she sets it aside and pulls her chair out, angling it a bit so she’s facing me directly. I’m startled by the motion, and a little unsettled. I’m not used to her looking at me like this.

“I didn’t marry Greg.”

I blink at her. Swallow my mouthful of food. Guilt creeps up. Leaves me feeling a bit sick.

“It’s none of my business,” I answer at last.

My words pain her. With her good hand, she grips the skirt of her chemise. But she doesn’t back down.

“I didn’t marry him.”

I wait a few seconds for further explanation, but she gives none.

It’s not my business, didn’t I just say so? And yet, I want to know. Need to know. And so, after a long pause, I ask the question.

“Then, how are you his wife?”

A shadow crosses her features. She looks past me into the blazing fireplace, her gaze distant and haunted.

“Father ran out of money,” her voice is cold. Flickering shapes dance in her large, liquid eyes as she continues to stare at the flame. “He said we could pay off my little sister’s hospital debts if I went to work for Greg Philips. I did what I was told. Only when I got there, Greg called me his wife and—” she cuts herself off, shudders at some horrific memory I don’t want to imagine. I feel the grip on my steak knife tighten.

“The first time I got away from him, I went back to my Father’s house. But it was deserted. The people said he moved out right after I left. They found my baby sister on an open window sill, frozen to death… Then Greg came for me. He brought me back and he… every night, every day… it never ended. I wasn’t a person, but an object to him.”

“It was better when I pleased him. When I couldn’t, he whipped me. Just my body, not my face. He said it was the only good thing about me, that it shouldn’t be damaged. I hated him so much. Hated myself for my powerlessness. So many times… I wished I could just die.”

“It didn’t matter how many times I ran. Greg has men everywhere. He always found me. Then one day, I was walking through the woods, and I saw you…”

She pauses her narrative to swallow down a lump in her throat.

“A little bird had fallen from its nest. You could have left it there. Greg would have stomped it. But you…you stopped walking. You bent and picked it up and…set it back in its nest.”

Tears stream silently down her face at the memory. I sit there, still shocked from her narrative, hardly knowing what to think.

“I couldn’t comprehend that sort of kindness. I’d never experienced it in all my life. But I thought if there was one person in all this world who might be strong enough—kind enough to help me…”

She breaks down in sobs. I don’t try to quiet her, but sit silently beside her, still as stone.

I knew my Squirrel had been through a harrowing ordeal. In a way, I’d even imagined it was like this. But it’s different somehow, hearing the account from her own lips. 

She’s been through so much. I can’t even comprehend how much. And yet, all this time, she’s been so quiet, worked so diligently, never asking anything or expecting a single favor. Afraid of being rejected by me, afraid of being hated. Terrified of being turned out to fend for herself.

My heart is broken for her. And my rage is kindled anew. Not for the first time I eye the hatchet on my wall and try to picture the face of Greg Philips. It would give me no small pleasure to kill this woman’s tormentor. Not quickly. Slowly. Chase him into a bear trap, I think. Leave him there for the foxes to gnaw on, for the worms to eat while he’s still alive…

“Rand.”

She sobs my name and my blood rushes alternately hot and cold to hear that one syllable leave her lips now for the first time. After so many days, I assumed she’d just forgotten I’d told it to her the night she broke her arm. But I see now she’s known all the while.

Heidi reaches for my shirt. I open my arms and she comes into my lap so easily. She cries against my chest and I hold her, cradling her carefully, mindful of her broken arm.

“How could he leave her like that? Just a defenseless little baby…”

Her sister? That’s who she cries for?

Once again, I am in awe of this woman. I’d assumed these tears were for herself. But, no. My Squirrel thinks only of others.

After all she’s endured, I cannot fathom her selflessness…

Do I need to kill her father too? I ask myself. Would that make her happy? If I thought it would, I’d head out this very minute…

“Rand…”

No. I can’t leave her like this. My Squirrel needs me.

“I promise,” my voice is gravel as I touch my lips slowly to the top of her head. “For now, for forever. No one will ever hurt you again.”