"He asked me to stay out so some investor out of Roundup could buy it cheap and lease it back to him. It was a bad deal, Claire. It wouldn't have saved him. He'd have lost it again in two years."
"Maybe. You told him you'd think about it."
"I did think about it."
"For one night. And then you went down to the courthouse and bought it for about two-thirds of what it was worth, and everybody said what a good buy it was, and you came home and you were happy, and I was happy for you, and then I'd lie awake." She was crying now, quietly, without wiping it. "I'm not saying you did anything wrong. It was legal. It was business. Somebody was going to buy it. But those were Danny's fences he let down, Wade. That was the pasture he grew up on. He knew where the gate wire was loose because his father showed him. He took those calves off the ground he used to think he'd own someday. You can't tell me that's nothing. You can't tell me that has nothing to do with us."
The fire snapped. A log settled and sent a lick of sparks up the chimney.
"So it's my fault," Wade said.
"No. It's his fault. He stole. He knows it, he's never once said otherwise." She wiped her face finally with the cuff of her sweatshirt. "And I lied to you, and I hid him, and I made our girl keep a secret from her father, and that's my fault, and I'll be sorry for that one for the rest of my life. And you bought a neighbor's land off the courthouse steps and then stood up and asked for his kid to go to prison. All of it's true at the same time. I don't know how to make it not be."