But he did not interrupt.
“My mother wath at the top of the thtairth.”
A pause. The sound of his wife swallowing.
“My mother held out her armth to m-me. I turned my b-b-b-ack on her. I didn’t warn her. I didn’t go get Edmund. I didn’t reach for her. I t-t-t-turned away. Then a cry made me look around and the landing wath empty and I heard thumping. Her body going down the thtairth.”
He didn’t know the wisdom of speaking or not, but he couldn’t keep silent any longer.
“You didn’t kill her, Caro.”
“My father thaid I did.”
“Your father was wrong. And he was wrong, too, about you not being his child.”
She tensed in his arms. “I know. I know all the pictureth in the gallery at Thudbury. I know I look like the him and all the other Hathkett going back generationth.”
“So you know he was a liar. You’re his daughter. You didn’t kill your mother. And even though I’d like to blame your father, I can’t. It happened. She drank too much, and she fell. It was an accident. There was no murder.”
“It wath murder by neglect.”
“No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t.”
“I could have gone to her.”
“Your mother could have not imbibed so much. Or Edmund or your father could have followed her out onto the landing to help her. They must have seen how drunk she was.”
A whisper.“Yeth.”
“And if you had gotten to her in time, she might have taken you down with her, and I wouldn’t have my darling Caro here today.”
Stillness.
“You can let go of me, Phineath. I won’t run away.”
“I know you’re a woman of your word, Caro.”
“Yeth.”
He slowly released his grip and she took her head off his shoulder and rolled away from him and he gazed at her face. For the first time when he looked at her, he saw a woman with thirty years of life.
“So now I know,” he said.
“Yeth.”
“And yet I still love you. Every bit of my heart is yours.”
She looked at the sky rather than at him. “It dothn’t fix me.”
“What doesn’t, darling?”
“Your love.”
“That’s not what love is for. Maybe it’s caring and nurturing, but it’s not fixing. And you don’t need fixing.”
“I f-f-feel broken.”
“You’re not. You’re clever, you’re strong, you’re wise. And you are so, so, so beautiful, my love. Yes, you’ve been hurt. And I hate that you were injured over and over again and I’d give anything to be able to take that away. But I can’t.”
