She looked at him, stricken. “Poor Father. Poor Mother. I must write to them at once.”
He nodded. “Then there is something else.” He hesitated again. “We need to talk…about our marriage.”
She braced herself. “Yes.” Her eyes focused on the riverbank where some laundry women were washing clothes.
“It is difficult for me to find words, because I am, in general, not a man who is used to talking about these things. Feelings. Marriage.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “But you have a right to know the truth. Maybe it will help you remember.”
“The truth. What is the truth?” she whispered.
“The truth, Catherine,” he said with emphasis, as if he had deliberately chosen that name instead of Lena, “the truth is that our marriage was…not as good as it could have been.” He did not meet her eyes.
A murder of crows rose up from the fields beyond, squawking.
“Why wasn’t it good?” she asked after a pause, eager to hear his side of the story.
“It was…all my fault.”
“How?”
“I failed to be a good husband. I take full responsibility for what happened.”
A steep wrinkle formed between Lena’s eyebrows. “A marriage, by definition, involves two people. It seems absurd for you to take full responsibility. Half of it might be yours. The other half is mine. As for what happened…what, specifically, do you mean?”
He looked to the horizon, where the sun was slipping behind the hills, his eyebrows forming dark, steep slashes against his pale face.
“The truth is that you could no longer bear it.” There was a beat of silence. “And so, you packed your trunks and left me.”
Lena’s heart skipped a beat. “I did?”
He ran a hand through his thick hair. “We had an argument. Truthfully, I can’t recall what it was about now. At the time, it must have seemed trivial to me, but to you, it must have been significant enough to leave. We didn’t know where you had gone for three days. By the time we found a trace of you in Scotland, it was too late.”
Lena rubbed the side of her nose, feeling a knot tighten in her stomach. There was so much more to the story. Why was he holding back? “Are you certain? It doesn’t seem like me to run off over a minor argument.”
There was a tightness around his eyes and mouth and a weariness seemed to settle over him. “Believe me, I have searched every recess of my mind, gone over it a thousand times, wondering what I could have said or done differently. I’ve thought about it every day for eightlong years.”
She did believe that to be true. His regret was genuine. She wanted to touch the line of suffering that had etched itself in the corner of his mouth but forced herself to hold back.
“Are you certain that I left you?” she asked softly. “Maybe I was visiting a friend or a relative. Didn’t I leave a letter?”
“No.” His expression tightened with some unspoken emotion. “But you did leave this.” Once more, his hand reached into his waistcoat, pulling out the slim leather volume she had seen in his room. “I believe it is right that I return it to you.”
Lena took the diary, her fingers brushing the worn cover. She’d seen it before, knew it was hers. Inside, the pages were filled with what she recognized as her own handwriting. “My diary.” She turned it in her hand. “Papa gave it to me on my fourteenth birthday.”
His lips twisted to a faint smile. “I see it is working, and your memory is returning. The answer to your questions might be in that journal, but the entries stop shortly before your departure for Scotland. You never wrote about why you decided to leave. I didn’t give this to you earlier because—” He paused, searching her face.
“Because?” she pressed.
“Because I was afraid,” he admitted. “Afraid of what you’d remember. Afraid it might drive you away.”
She observed him closely. A breeze blew a strand of hair over his forehead, and suddenly he looked younger, more vulnerable.
“Why tell me all this now? You could have easily saideverything was perfect, that our marriage was a success and that we couldn’t have been happier.”
“Truth be told, I wanted to do just that.” He sighed. “To paint the past as a picture of bliss, to convince you that it was all roses, milk and honey, and that it couldn’t have been better. But that would have been a lie, and I realised…I want a new beginning—with you. Now. Based on the present, not haunted by the past.”
Her breath caught. “Are you sincere?” she whispered.
He brushed a loose strand of hair from her face and his knuckles gently grazed her cheek. He traced her lips lightly with his thumb.
