“He grabbed my face and brought the glass to my lips. He was going to force it down my throat.

“I said, ‘Please don’t make me. It will kill the baby.’ That was the only thing that shook him out of it. But it was close—too damned close. I didn’t know if he would listen next time.

“I ran away the next day. I was terrified, of course. I knew he’d kill me if he found out. I never would have had the courage to go, if the baby wasn’t due a month later. I was out of time. And I never would have made it out, if I didn’t have help. As I mentioned, people here will handle things themselves, if it gets bad enough. Despite all Ellis had done to isolate me, I had one friend left . . . ”

She trails off. I’m wildly curious about this part of the story, but after all she’s told me, I know I don’t have the right to push for more.

“I’m sorry,” she says, shaking her head. “I didn’t mean for this story to be so long. You’re probably wondering why I even brought it up. But I’m about to get to the point.”

“I want to hear it all,” I assure her.

“I got away,” she repeats. “I had the baby. Not here—over the border in North Carolina, on Cherokee land. It was the only place that felt safe. The only place Ellis couldn’t go.

“My friend who helped me . . . his family took me in. His sisters helped me with the birth, and with the baby. I was afraid that I might not feel everything that I should for the baby after it was born. Because I thought it might remind me too much of Ellis. But from the moment I saw Raylan, I loved him like I’d never loved anything. More than my parents or siblings or my own self.

“I stayed there for six years. My friend . . . became more than a friend to me. We were married. He had always treated Raylan like his own son. After we had two more children . . . it seemed wrong to make unnatural divisions between them. I always meant to tell Raylan the truth. But the truth was so ugly.

“And they adored each other. Even though Raylan wasn’t technically his son, they were more alike than Waya and his own blood children.

“We were so happy; no day seemed like the right day to tear that happiness apart. To put such an ugly burden on Raylan. Especially because Ellis died. So there was no chance of him ever finding us.

I can see tears in the corner of Celia’s eyes. Not tears of sorrow—tears of happiness, remembering that time when she was free again, and married to a man who actually loved her, with three beautiful small children running around.

“I waited too long,” she says. “We got this ranch. We moved here, all together. The children grew up so fast. Time flew away from me.