Chapter 156

Malachi

Teague banked the stove.

He did it slowly, the way he did everything after dark, raking the coals together and laying the last of the logs over them so they would burn low until morning. When he had finished, he stood up and wiped his good hand on his trousers and looked at me, sitting in the chair across from the empty one where she had been.

He didn’t say anything.

He looked at the small door at the back of the cabin. Then at me again. Then he picked up the lamp from the table and went into his own room and shut the door.

I sat in the dark with the stove ticking.

Her cup was on the hearth. The tea in it had gone cold an hour before she put it down. I picked it up. I don’t know why. I held it between my hands, the way she had held it, and looked at the line of firelight under her door.

There wasn’t one. She had put her lamp out.

***

I had slept in that chair every night since the storm.

I hadn’t decided to.