“I think something bad is going to happen,” she said, her eyes hot and blurry.

“Bad like what?”

“Don’t know. Just a feeling I got down here.” She put her arms across her stomach. “Ever since I got the telegram I been thinking—”

“I’m here.” He put his arm around her shoulders, his grasp strong and protective. She rested her head on his shoulder.

She had the words in her mouth. All she had to do was open her lips, and out would tumble her heart, her shame—all of it, and quick as rain. There was the telegram, the attack. Her mother’s quiet.

“I know. You’ve always been.”

“And I always will be.”

“Shouldn’t say always. It’s rotten luck.”

“No such thing as luck.”

“Then how do you explain the two of us?”

“Simple. Ain’t no one else likes us. I know your ma hired me and all, but after all this time? You’re more than just my pupil.”

Lady Mae’s breath caught. Ever since she received the telegram, she’d thought of telling him—what? That she was a child no more? That she spent the time without him thinking of the time with? She felt it there behind her breastbone, a deep urge to lean into him. “That so?” she asked. “How you mean?”

He pulled his arm off of Lady Mae’s shoulders and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands and tapped the tips of his thumbs together. “Well,” he said. “First off, you’re like kin to me.”

“Kin?”

“Aye. Always thought what it would be like to have a brother, a sister. You the closest thing I got to it.” He nudged her knee. “Hear me? The closest thing I got. Now go on,” and he nodded to the small book on the table. “Go on.”

She picked it up gingerly as if it would hurt her, as though the book itself held in it a power to destroy. She opened the cover and skimmed the title on the thin first page: On Reason and Forgiveness. Arbuckle reached over and turned the page for her, tapping the first sentence with his long finger. And so to please him as she liked to do, she read the opening line.

Forgiveness is only decreed when met with the removal of opinion and blame; such a decree can only occur with the suspension of simultaneous judgment.

“I ain’t allowed to blame them? Edith and those boys?” Lady Mae raised her eyebrows at Arbuckle.

“That ain’t it exactly. They did do something, and should be held accountable. It’s what comes after. Here, see?” he asked and pointed to the phrase suspension of simultaneous judgment. “You can hold them accountable, but after—here,” he said and flipped forward several pages. “Read this.”

Forgiveness, in its simplest form, is to pardon, to let go, to release the burden of hurt. It is not condoning a wrong, or forgetting an offense; the purpose of forgiveness is to create hope for the future.