Abigail said, “It was what she was saying that was so hard. And the way she spoke. There was no calm in her. She wasn’t loud. But her voice was wild, that wildness of an anguish beyond control. There wasn’t any of the certainty, the bitterness, when she was speaking to the other one. This was all torment to her. She was telling him that he’d known all along what he was doing. That he was trading himself for her. That she hated her ignorance not to have seen it at the time. That she knew better. And wondered if she had just not allowed herself to know. Or that she had hidden it from herself, had told herself she was leaving a life behind and making a new one for herself. That this was courage. That this was what people did. But it was cowards finally who believe they can lay down one life and pick up another and not have them meet again. Told him perhaps it was the Lord who allowed her to do that only so when she came back she would stand revealed before herself in the full glory of retribution. That no punishment could be greater than to find in herself that all the rest of her life, that new life, all that was made from a lie. Lying to herself. That the Lord knew she could undo nothing and yet could not go on as before. And so was stranded in her hatred, was left to hate herself and all she’d made for herself. With no escape. Beyond escape. Daddy, the way she said his name, not just once but when she called him it was over and over, like beads on a string. Peter Peter Peter Peter. The way that one word each time carries everything in it that can’t be said, that hasn’t got a voice. You know just what I mean.”

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.