The Grass Widow by Nanci Little Page A

all the comfort they knowed about was dry clothes an’ a tit when they was hungry. What I asked you was none o’ my affair an’ I’m sorry for makin’ you feel so bad. I ain’t here to pester you if you want to be alone, but I know sometimes bein’ alone makes the hurtin’ worse.” She cleared her throat, a nervous, almost shy sound, before Aidan felt a hesitant touch at her shoulder. “Aidan, I know I got the talk an’ the ways of a man. I reckon that’s ’cause I got raised up with ’em an’ like ’em, an’ I expect I must be a oddity to you, but it means I learnt about raisin’ a hand to a woman, too. I’d ask God to strike me dead before ever I’d hurt you. If you’re holdin’ away from me for fearin’ that—”
    “I don’t know how not to.” The words felt as dully familiar as a week-old toothache. “I don’t know how to believe you. I’m sorry.”
    “How the hell have they treated you, then? Didn’t they ever even love you? You still got color from where he hit you last! I can’t take the place of your mother, but Lord, girl, I can at least hold you an’ let you—”
    “Then do it!” She forced the words past a need to cry so immediate her throat ached with it. “Beat me or hold me or something—do something! Do something—”
    And even when Joss took her into her arms, she still fought the tears; she had no memory of such gentleness of touch as the hands that held her close to a warm, dusty shoulder to be able to trust it now. “Aidan—oh, little cousin.” Joss’s voice was a low intensity under her ear. “It’s all right, Aidan. Let it go. Let it go. Damn them—damn their hard hearts an’ what they’ve done to you that you can’t trust love! I’ll love you if you let me, Aidan—or even if you don’t. I’ll just love you, so you’ll always know there’s someone who does.”
    She was warm; she smelled of dust and sunshine, of fresh easy
     
    sweat and the nearness of horses, and Aidan remembered the day she had first come here: Joss had jumped lightly from the wagon, and from under the porch had come the lean gray cat to wind around her ankles. Joss had scooped it into her arms to bump heads with it, her hands giving it quick, ear-scratching affection. It had wallowed in her arms, trusting her completely, and Aidan had known that no matter what their differences, this odd and unexpected woman would never hurt her. She had forgotten that, this hard night.
    She shuddered a sigh into Joss’s shoulder. “Don’t send me away,” she whispered. “Please let me stay—”
    “Let you stay? Good Lord, Aidan, why would you think I wouldn’t?”
    “My own folk had no use for the shame of me—”
    “The shame of you? Their own should take them straight to hell!” Again, that flare of temper, a rupture of tolerance that roughened the arms around her and tightened the fingers in her hair; she shrank from it, ducking into herself in self-defense.
    “Oh, damn—” It was a shivering breath into her hair. “Aidan, I’m sorry, I’ve frightened you again—it’s just so hard for me to understand them! Who’s to love someone right or wrong, if not family? Family’s supposed to allow error an’ love in spite of it, an’
    damn those Blackstones—”
    “There’s a difference between error and sin.”
    “An’ such difference is for the Lord to decide. No one else has right nor power to judge you. What was your sin? Love?”
    Do you—did you—love him?
    Her voice, when she found it, felt harsh and brittle. “There was no love.” And she waited for Joss to retreat, to have finally heard enough.
    Joss drew a jittery breath, and seemed about to speak but didn’t; she seemed frozen, unable to move or speak or, for a moment, even to breathe again, and Aidan’s head went light in the thickness of her cousin’s silence, knowing it would only be a moment before Joss put her away from her, disgusted, repulsed—
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    “Aidan, was it—” Joss swallowed; Aidan felt