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Ash pulls the blankets up higher on my body, makes sure my bare shoulders are covered. “Okay,” she says. “We’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”
“Where’s Bishop?” I ask, teeth chattering. I don’t know if it’s from cold or shock.
Ash pauses. “I’m not sure.” She lays a hand on my forehead like she’s checking for a fever. “But he’ll be back.”
I close my eyes, roll away from her.
I haven’t been asleep. I’ve been drifting, my mind skipping from memories of my father, thoughts of Callie, longing for Bishop. The soft sounds of Caleb’s and Ash’s voices from the living room trailed off earlier, replaced by Caleb’s muted snores. Bishop is back; I can hear him in the bathroom. It reminds me so much of the time we spent here as husband and wife, all the nights I listened to him get ready for bed. Of all the possible scenarios I pictured for our future back then, this was never one of them.
The bathroom door opens, and his footsteps pause outside the bedroom. I hold my breath, releasing it slowly when he walks into the room, closing the door behind him. I hear the rustle of clothes, then the bed dips as he lies down beside me. I’m on my back, staring up at the ceiling, my arms at my sides. He doesn’t speak to me, doesn’t touch me. The silence between us gathers and takes on weight, heavy and crushing against my chest. I am thankful that the numbness that descended earlier hasn’t fully lifted, or the pain of this moment might be the thing that finally breaks me, the limit to my endurance breached. I want to reach for him, but what my father did to his sits between us like a mountain I have no idea how to climb. How can he still love me now? How can I expect him to?
“Bishop,” I whisper. It is the only word I can manage, low and choked from my throat. The blankets shift, and Bishop’s hand brushes against mine, slides over it, weaving our fingers together and holding on tight. I suck in a sobbing breath, clench his hand as hard as I can. Tears spill out of my eyes like they’ve been gathering there all day, waiting for this moment to erupt.
He rolls onto his side and so do I, wrapping my arms around his neck as he pulls me against him. He is crying, too, warm tears slick on his face where it touches my cheek. When we kiss, our sorrow mingles, the same way our fathers’ blood did earlier. Bishop shifts over me, yanks off his T-shirt with one hand hooked behind his head. The tears don’t stop, for either one of us, as we move together. The pleasure in my body and the pain in my heart merge into one bright streak behind my eyelids. My fingers dig into his back, desperate and too hard, but I can’t make my hands loosen. I need to reassure myself that he’s here, warm and alive and with me.
After everything, still with me.
Once our tears stop and our breathing settles, we lie on our sides facing each other. The night is dark, but the moon reflecting off the newly fallen snow gives the room a hushed, ethereal glow. My eyelids are puffy from crying, my lips raw from his kisses.
“I feel like it’s my fault,” I tell him. “That I caused it all by coming back here.”
“No,” Bishop says. He has one arm curled under the pillow his head is resting on, the other slung across my waist. “Our fathers were never going to have a happy ending, Ivy. Whether you were here or a thousand miles away. They had a horrible history, and nothing you did, or didn’t do, was ever going to change it.”
“But it was my father who killed yours,” I whisper.
“You’re not responsible for your father. Just like I’m not responsible for mine. They were grown men. They made their own decisions.”
“But your father didn’t do anything,” I protest. “He wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger.”
“He did other things, though,” Bishop says. “When I left here earlier, I went to check on my mother. I talked to her about what went on while we were gone. And what your father said was true. My father was having people killed. Not a lot of them. Some he just had arrested or beaten. Some he had put out. And that’s bad enough. But a few he had killed, to send a message about supporting your father. He wasn’t all bad, I know that. But he did bad things.” Bishop reaches up and brushes my tangled hair off my cheek. “So it wasn’t only your father, Ivy. It was both of them.”
“I just wish…”
“You wish what?”
“My father had good ideas for Westfall,” I say. “I really do believe that. I wish he’d been able to see past his hate for your father, so that maybe he could have done something worthwhile.”
“Well, if we’re trading wishes, I wish my father had learned from losing your mother. Even after everything that happened with her, he still clung to the same ideas.” Bishop pauses. “He knew, better than anyone, how wrong it was to take away people’s choices. But it didn’t stop him. He could never admit there might have been another way to do things.”
“They both had chances,” I say. “Chances they didn’t take.”
“It’s not too late, you know,” Bishop says. “To make Westfall into something better.”
“Is that what you want? To stay here and change things?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think that far ahead.” Bishop sighs. “Right now I’m just so tired.”
His soft words make me realize the depth of my own exhaustion, bone deep and heavy across my limbs. I scoot closer to him, rest my hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry about your father.”
He turns his head to brush his lips against my palm. “I’m sorry about yours.” He pauses. “I’d be lying if I said I was sorry about Callie, though. But I am sorry you were the one who had to kill her. I know how much that hurt you.” His words don’t make me angry. This is who Bishop is, especially with me. Honest. After a lifetime of lies, I’m grateful for the pain of truth.
“I wouldn’t go back and change it,” I tell him. “Even if I could. I wasn’t going to let you die, Bishop. Not ever.”
He leans forward and kisses me, lets his mouth linger. “What you said to Callie about you two loving each other more?”
“What about it?” I whisper against his lips.
“You’re good at loving people, Ivy. You love hard. You’re so much better at it than you give yourself credit for.”
