And paused then, her eyes blunt upon him, waiting, until he nodded understanding. Then she went on. “Then she told him that however awful, however unbearable, it was for her, whatever she endured, whatever she allowed, she could never know what it was like for him. Not ever she told him. Not unless she was led out by a group of men and taken to stand tiptoe on a block with a rope around her neck and doused down with coal oil and set afire until she danced off that block. Said it made her sick. Sick of herself. And sorry for herself. Told him that was the part of herself she hated most—that feeling sorry for herself.”

Abby stopped then and turned her eyes from her father in a slow scroll over the room behind him without moving her head. Then looked to her hands lying flat in her lap. She was quiet, finished but not done. They sat silent.

Norman inclined his head so it rested against his breastbone. He closed his eyes and sat motionless a long time. There was no movement but still she felt the tremors rise off him with his breathing, breathing so shallow she could not see it. After a while he raised his head with his eyes open upon her, those eyes bright with recognition, a resignation beyond grief. After another while of indeterminate time he spoke. “That man Peter. It wasn’t just that he helped your mother run off. It was what she was running off from.”

She waited.

“It’s the part of your story that confuses me. The other man she was talking to. The half brother. The one you felt she addressed as if living. He was not. But I can see how from what she was saying you’d think so. Blaming him for what happened to Peter. Because in his way he surely caused it. But see, he’s dead too. In fact, he’s been dead longer than Peter. Though likely not by much.”

She shook her head. “If you’d heard her.”

“You’re not paying attention. It was on account of the half brother, on account of his death, that she had to run off in the first place. It was because of that death that Peter helped her.”

“She killed him? The one called Alexander?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

She studied his face and then looked away. Took her lower lip between her teeth gently, as if cradling herself in that one soft curl of flesh. Looked back at him and now he saw the hard shining glint of grief in her eyes, sorrow free of self, sorrow not for the mother but for the woman, now greater within her than before and also, although he didn’t think she knew this yet, lesser.

“You didn’t tell Pru that part.”

“I didn’t see the need for it. I was thinking only to save that grief from her, from the both of you.”