Ch. 20: Where We Begin

Rain traced long silver lines down the window, and somewhere a clock counted the hours.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Ela said. "I'm asking you to listen." Ela crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to. Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to.

Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Ela said. "I'm asking you to listen." The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered.

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

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Ela said. "I'm asking you to listen." Ela crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to.

Ela crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to. She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more.