Ch. 20: Where We Begin

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

The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Emily said. "I'm asking you to listen." For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all.

"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. There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do.

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. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to.

The truth, when it finally came, was smaller and sharper than she had imagined.

Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most. Emily crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to.