“It wasn’t fair of me, you know.”
Sabine was the last to track him down. The last of the wives who was now prepared to empty her bag of regrets and anger. Ghost’s wife had given him a quick hug and kissed his cheek while muttering that she loved and forgave him. She’d let him go and walked away, Sophie trailing behind her like the perfect child she had always been.
Sabine wouldn’t make any of this easy.
Without a doubt, Aberlour had been confused for most of the day. Everyone told him something about his men that he hadn’t known before, but when Sabine started with an apology, he’d known exactly where she was headed with their little talk.
“At my wedding, I was out of line.”
Her apology was completely unnecessary, of course. Aberlour had known what she’d meant, but perhaps she hadn’t said this for his benefit at all, but rather for hers.
“When they knocked on my door, those two soldiers—I thought—” Her breath caught in her throat, causing her to choke for a minute, and Aberlour knew exactly how she felt.
“That’s the first thing I thought about,” she admitted. “I thought—fucking Aberlour failed us.”
Silence fell between them. The party continued, the children screamed, the peopled chatted, the grilled sizzled, but all Aberlour heard was total silence in that moment.
“It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair then, and it sure as hell ain’t now,” she admitted, like it weighed heavily on her. “Major General Baron told me you saw it—” she stopped to take a breath. “He told me you stayed to watch the broadcast.” Much easier words to say. Ones not filled with meaning. Each one of the wives had eventually learned the truth about their husband’s demise—at Abe and Oli’s insistence.
“I did,” Aberlour admitted. “We both did.” He gestured towards Oliver, who was now tiring quickly, even as he continued to spin children around in his wheelchair.
“I can’t—” she broke off and then tried again. “You weren’t responsible for them, nor for any of what happened.” She paused to look out over the crowd. “Marcus would have hated that I kept you away from us for these past five years. He was always big on family.”
Aberlour had to smile at that because she was absolutely right. Marcus had been relentless in stressing the importance of family, regardless of the shape it took.
“You didn’t,” Aberlour insisted firmly, shaking his head.
“I did,” she retorted, speaking a bit more forcefully. “I know you, Abe. Well, I knew you. I knew exactly where you were, every Christmas. I know about your booth at the fairgrounds—I know—” she stopped and shook her head. “I should have reached out. I forgot that you were there as well. That whatever hell I was in, you were right there along with me.”
Aberlour didn’t say a goddamned word. He thought about that shrink and her weird cuckoo clock, about all those ghosts behind his eyelids.
“He was rooting for you two to figure it out.”
Aberlour glanced over at her, wondering about the abrupt change in subject, but she wasn’t looking at him. Instead, she was staring at Oliver.
“I’m glad you did. Even if—” she stopped again. “He’d be glad you did,” she finished, with a bright smile.
There was so much Aberlour wanted to say. So much, but he had so few words left in him.
“I was a dumbass for far too long,” he said. It was all he could say in that moment.
Sabine snorted and nodded.
“Yeah, he said that, too.”
For a moment Aberlour thought she might leave it at that. He thought she might spare him what was coming next and leave now with a simple hug and a wave. But she didn’t. Instead, she smiled and turned to face him directly.
She stared right into his eyes, and Aberlour was terrified she could see right through him.
The words came out despite his best intentions to hold them in.
“I’d have traded places with him. Anytime, any fucking second. I tried. I wanted to. I’d have done anything. Given anything. I wanted nothing more,” he confessed roughly. There should have been tears and sobs, but there was none, because he’d cried all he could already. He was just empty now. Just hollow. “I’d have traded places with him, Sabine. He deserved to live. They all did,” he repeated, and he saw her smile. Beautiful as the day she got married, right before she pulled him close.
“I know,” she whispered softly, pulling him close to her.
He wrapped his arms around her. To the casual observer, it might have looked like he was holding her up, but in truth it was actually the other way around.
“I know,” she repeated a few more times.
