Quickly.
Painlessly.
That he never knew what happened.
But he had lived for weeks.
He had been hurt.
Afraid.
Far from home.
And I had never known.
“You were with him?”
“Almost every day.”
I lifted the paper flower.
“He made this there?”
Adrian nodded.
“He found a scrap of yellow paper. After folding it, he held it up and said it was probably the worst flower anyone had ever made.”
Despite everything, a broken laugh escaped me.
“It is.”
“I told him the same thing.”
Adrian almost smiled.
“He gave it to me a few days before he died. He told me that if I made it home and he didn’t, I had to give it to you.”
Adrian’s voice softened.
“He said, ‘I promised her yellow roses. This is the best I can do.’”
I stared at the crooked little flower.
James had made it for me.
During his final weeks.
“What happened to him?”
“He grew weaker. His wound became worse. There wasn’t proper treatment.”
“That’s not enough.”
I looked directly at Adrian.
“I have waited fifty-six years. Tell me how my husband died.”
Adrian’s hands tightened.
Then he said,
“James made me promise something.”
“What?”
“He told me that if I survived and he didn’t, I should tell you he died during the original attack. Quickly. In the explosion.”
My mouth went dry.
“He told you to lie?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he loved you.”
I almost laughed at the cruelty of that answer.
Adrian continued.
“He didn’t want you imagining him wounded or captured. He didn’t want you spending the rest of your life picturing what those weeks were like. He wanted you to believe it happened instantly.”
I stepped backward.
“So he decided what I could handle.”
“He was twenty-three, Mary.”
“So was I.”
Adrian fell silent.
That was what hurt most.
James had decided, out of love, that I was too fragile for the truth.
And in trying to spare me, he had taken away something that belonged to me.
The right to know the final chapter of my own husband’s life.
“Did he talk about me?” I finally asked.
Adrian’s expression softened.
“All the time.”
“What did he say?”
He looked down at James’s duffel.
“That conversation will take longer than we have standing here.”
“Then start walking.”
I pointed outside.
“You’re telling me everything.”
