Page 69 (1/2)

"Oskar," Peyton said in a dead voice "It was Oskar"

She nodded "He left ht we’d been careful, but obviously…it was about three weeks afterhen I didn’t bleed and then I knew I kept it a secret Imy parents it was because I needed space--they didn’t know until later what Sophy had done That Oskar had gone with her"

"Here Take this"

She stared at what he was holding out to her, not understanding what it was--oh, a Kleenex box She snapped free some tissues and tucked the rest under her arhorn as she blew it

"I was eightwhen the pains started About teeks later, I was in this house I’d rented…I started bleeding and…" She blew her nose again and pressed the tissue wad to her eyes as the pain ca She cahter…"

The i was carved into her brain, deep as a ravine, never to lose its contours no matter how many times she recalled it or how many years passed

All of a sudden, she felt a warainst hers

Peyton

The sobbing ca the thick robe he had on, hanging on as her legs went out froot you…" he said "I have you"

"I never told hinant…but I never told hiht and asked ht I had an abortion"

Peyton’s brows tightened "Wait a ? And he ith your sister?"

"When he was talking tonight…" She pulled back and then had to pace around "He asked me where I went to have the abortion I didn’t tell him I miscarried" She looked down at her flat belly "I buried the young by myself Out in the field behind the house While I was still bleeding I…covered the grave with stones, and planted a stupid little bush because I didn’t want her not to have a headstone or any " She shook her head "He doesn’t deserve to knohat happened That is my life, my private pain He didn’t want her and he didn’t want me And I don’t think he deserves…he doesn’t deserve either of us"

Novo closed her eyes "She’s still withof the world--but I keep her here" She touched over her heart "She is here with me Always"

Abruptly, she looked at him "And you are the only one who knows"

--

There were so many different ways to say "I love you"

As Peyton went back over to Novo and pulled her against him once more, he reflected that those three words were certainly the most common transmission of the sacred emotion between two souls But there were other ways Gestures, gifts, the rebuilding of a barn after a fire, the shoveling of a ay, even soroceries in fro this terrible truth, a loss so great that he couldn’t fathoedy or why she had kept going afterward: By inviting hi herself up to him in this way, as she had done with no other, she was proclai," she said when she had calined her soency, with no one to hold her hand or ease her in any way And then she had buried the young--

He squeezed his eyes shut as he iined what that had taken out of her

"Coht her into the bedroorammed duvet as if she hurt all over And when he joined her, he put his arm around her and ran into the corners of the Kleenex box, which she clutched like a child did a toy for coht himself closer to her