Only after the door closed did I realize my hands were shaking.
Celia looked at me.
“Are you all right?”
I sat down slowly.
“Yes.”
Then I began to cry.
Not because Raymond had frightened me.
But because I finally understood something Thomas had carried for almost half a century.
He had known exactly what kind of man his cousin was.
And for all his mistakes, he had refused to let a vulnerable woman and child face that man entirely alone.
That evening, I returned to Thomas's study.
For the first time since his death, I opened his desk.
The familiar smell of leather and cedar polish made my throat ache.
His reading glasses lay beside the telephone.
A half-finished crossword sat beneath a paperweight.
His favorite fountain pen rested in its wooden holder.
I touched it.
“Why didn't you just tell me?” I whispered.
There was no answer.
Of course.
