“You need to eat,” she said.
“I believe that is the beauty of my predicament,” he said. “I don’t need to do a damn thing any longer that I don’t wish to.”
“George, I can’t have you speak like that. I just can’t.”
The sun was dropping toward the horizon and he was still sitting up in the bed, looking ahead at the wall. She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her. She’d already lost track of the times he’d spoken when she thought he was gone away in a dream, or ignored her when he’d appeared to be hanging on her every word.
“I saw them go,” he said. “I watched them turn and run and I have no doubt, no doubt at all, that they passed through safely.”
She knew the only way to urge him on was to maintain her silence and so she sat motionless, blending into the darkness now falling over the room.
“He held my hand. I was never so sure that he was my son as I was in that moment. Even in the hospital, when you held my hand yourself, I was certain it was his. Even now…yes. Even now I feel it. I can still hear him whispering in my ear. He said, ‘Tell her I will write. Long letters this time.’ And in the span it took for me to gather the words to say goodbye, they’d already gone into the night. He did not mention any sense of his love but I felt it.”
And here he put his hand into her own.
“Don’t you?”
She was caught up in the moment, in his account, so much so that she didn’t realize that during its telling, without a word to note as much, George had wet himself. She could smell the sourness of the urine; only needed to place her fingertips upon the sheets to confirm the warmth spreading out from under him.
“Why don’t we get you cleaned up,” she said. “After that perhaps we can both get some rest.”
*
In the failing light she saw the spray of yellow hair out the window, the build of his frame atop the horse, and recognized her brother. She was in the kitchen eating the broth that George would not and dropped her bowl off in the sink to greet Silas outside. A dusty film still cloaked the darkening sky, a bitter vestige from the fire that she could taste at the back of her throat.
“Isabelle,” he said.
“You’ve come,” she said.
He looked pained to be there, at least that’s what she gathered from his expression, until she realized he was dismayed by her own appearance.
“You don’t look well,” he said.
She hadn’t faced her reflection in days.
“When you hear of what’s happened, I’m sure you won’t blame me.”
She invited Silas in, and he went to the kitchen to fetch himself some water, then joined her on the couch in the big room.
“How did you—？” she started.
“Your friend sent a message for me.”
“Mildred,” Isabelle said. “But she told me the post office was gone. That no telegrams would send.”
“She sent a messenger instead. I’m sure she paid dearly, too. The man must’ve traveled without interruption. He nearly fell off his horse in exhaustion. I wish I could’ve come faster, but work and whatnot…”
She eased his guilt, then told him the story, leaving nothing out. And when she came to George’s wound, Silas immediately stood to go upstairs to see him. At this she protested.
“Don’t even consider it. He won’t have you there. Besides, he’s asleep now. Rest will help more than anything.”
Silas fell back onto the couch.
“At least let me stay for a time. I can help while you tend to him.”
“What would you possibly do?”
“Whatever is needed. I’ve already told Lillian not to expect me back, and she assured me she’d keep the kids in line and the house in order. Do not even think of it as a favor. It’s my wish to stay.”
She tried to refuse the favor but he would not budge, and she couldn’t deny how helpful it would be to have her brother at hand. Nonetheless, the nature of his presence continued to rankle her as the days passed, since seeing him around the house only reminded her of the last time he’d come, upon learning of Caleb’s supposed death. But perhaps this was the role of a sibling: an overseer of tragedy, doling out gestures of sympathy when all else was lost. Though she was grateful, it seemed ghastly, an offense, and she began to mistreat him—sending him to clean Ridley’s stable, or to wash George’s sheets, but he never once showed the temper she’d known since their childhood. He was happy to absorb her anger, or pretended to be, and to accept whatever degrading task she assigned him. In idle moments he even sought out his own responsibilities, taking it upon himself to assess the land that had been scorched, coming back to dinner with figures in his head, work to be done, and the distraction was a great pleasure to Isabelle, although she did not show it.