"She was..." Eleanor forced herself to continue. "She was the woman Aubrey was in love with. And he believed I had driven her away."
The brush clattered onto the dressing table.
"What?" Liz's voice was sharp with shock.
And so, Eleanor told her. All of it.
When she finished, Liz was pale with fury.
"That scheming little trollop!" Liz whisper shouted. "I am going to drag her here and demand an apology! Where does she live? I will go there myself!"
"Liz, no." Eleanor's voice was tired. "What would be the point? It is done. The damage is done."
"The point would be making her face what she did! Making her tell the truth!"
"She lied to both of us." Eleanor stared at her reflection. "Moreover, she accepted my money while I had no idea she was the reason my marriage was destroyed before it began."
Liz's hands found Eleanor's shoulders, gripping them. "How are you so calm about this? You should be furious!"
"I was furious." Eleanor's voice cracked slightly. "I am angry and hurt and shocked and devastated. But I have been angry and hurt for so long. I am so tired of feeling this way. I want to move on with my life and not be burdened by hatred any longer."
"He punished you for something you did not do." Liz met her sister's eyes in the mirror. "He chose to believe the worst of you, then abandon you. Made your life a misery without ever once asking for your side of the story. How can you nurse him when he’s wronged you so abominably?"
"Because he is my husband." Eleanor's voice was barely above a whisper. "Because he is injured and helpless and suffering. He needs me. Because despite everything, he is... he is hard to hate."
"Hard to hate?" Liz's eyebrows rose. "After everything he has done?"
"He is not what I expected." Eleanor's hands twisted in her lap. "He is angry, yes. Resentful. But also... confused. Hurt. He genuinely believed Rose. Genuinely thought I had destroyed his happiness. Andnow he is beginning to realise he might have been wrong, and I can see it eating at him."
"Good. Let it eat at him. Let him realise exactly what he threw away." Liz resumed working on Eleanor's hair, her movements brisk. "You are too forgiving, Ellie. You always have been."
"I am leaving, so it hardly matters whether I forgive him or not," Eleanor said flatly. "We will go our separate ways, and this nightmare will finally be over."
Liz's hands stilled again. "You are truly going through with that?"
"Yes."
"Even now?" Liz paused. "Even after living with him? After caring for him?"
"Especially after that." Eleanor's voice was firm. "Because I have seen what it is like, Liz. To have him here. To tend to him, to talk to him, to begin to know him, and it only makes it worse."
"Worse how?"
Eleanor closed her eyes. "Because I can see glimpses of what we might have been if he had tried, if Rose had not lied. And those glimpses make the reality unbearable."
"Oh, Ellie." Liz's voice was soft now, sad.
"I cannot stay here and watch him return to London and go back to pretending I do not exist. I cannot spend the rest of my life in this house, alone, wondering if perhaps he might return." Eleanor opened her eyes, meeting her sister's gaze in the mirror. "I need to have purpose. I need children who need me even if they’re not my own. I will have a life of meaning, Liz. Not the life I dreamed of but a life nonetheless."
Liz was quiet for a long moment, her fingers working Eleanor's hair into an elegant twist. "And what if he does not want you to leave?"
"Then I’ll leave knowing he wanted me," Eleanor said. "Regardless of the circumstances, I am not ready to forgive him."
"You sound very certain."
"I am." Eleanor watched as Liz pinned the last curl into place. "He may not love me, but I will not be disrespected and discarded."
Because Eleanor had learned, over two long years, that she didn’t need him after all.
