So yes, she was right. He hadn’t forgiven her. And he realized now that his lack of forgiveness was there in everything he did and said, the tone of his voice, the rigid stance of his body whenever Amelia appeared in the room, the way he tried never to really look at her as if that might make her disappear. How must it feel to live like that? How must it make Victorine feel to witness his barely masked loathing? And what kind of man did it make him that he couldn’t find even a grain of compassion in him for a woman he’d damaged?

He couldn’t stop the sigh escaping and Amelia’s face twisted. Even though he knew that, given her temper, he shouldn’t ask this now, he did. “What happened with Victorine?”

Amelia stared at him for a long moment and he waited, braced, for the lie. For the accusations that would be leveled at Victorine about her naughtiness, her willfulness. For the demand that she be sent to boarding school in Europe. Instead, Amelia’s face rearranged itself and, for the briefest instant, Dan thought he saw a trace of honest emotion, a sadness in her eyes.

“What happened is that Victorine would like me to be Jess,” Amelia said flatly. “And I’m not. I can never be. So I became angry and I hit her. It was not, obviously, my finest moment.” She turned away to pick up her diamond-adorned, gold cigarette case.

Her candidness made his words come out honestly too. “I’m sorry. Which is useless, but I am.”

“I know you are. And I know that if saying sorry a million times would fix my face and my arm, you would do it.” She paused and they sat, he perched on the edge of the bed, legs braced for escape, and she in the armchair by the fireplace, her cherry-colored dress blending into the rose fabric of the chair as if she belonged there.

She lit her cigarette, breathed in the smoke, tapped the ash into the tray. He watched her, still waiting for the conversation to escalate into the inevitable argument.

“What will we do?” she asked instead.

“What will we do?” he repeated, surprised. It was the first time she’d asked for his opinion. Until now, she’d pushed and demanded and he’d resisted and ignored and he winced to think of all the quarrels, loud and hostile, all the accusations, all the shame, all the sorrow. “What would you like to do?” he asked.

“I’d like for Victorine and I to get along. Every day that we don’t, you hate me a little more.”

He began to protest, to say that he didn’t hate her but she put up her hand. “All right, you’re not capable of hatred. You’re too fine a man for that.” Her voice was wry. “But you hate this situation a little more. Am I right?”

He nodded.

“So, I’m going to retreat,” she said. “I won’t expect you to take me to parties and hold my hand and wrap your arm around me. I won’t take dinner with you. I’ll stop insisting that we find somewhere to live that’s far away from your father. I’ll leave you alone. I will try not to hate myself because you can’t bear to touch me…” Her voice faltered and she ground out her cigarette.