Ch. 7: The Photograph

There were things Nina had learned never to say aloud, and most of them were about she.

She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered.

She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Nina said. "I'm asking you to listen."

She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all.

There are moments that divide a life into before and after. This was becoming one of them.

Money could buy a great many things, she had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Nina said. "I'm asking you to listen."

Tomorrow would ask its questions. Tonight, she let herself simply breathe.