Page 175

“Good.”

His head lifts sharply as I sit across from him. “Fear, in this case, may keep you polite.”

“I do not want to be afraid of her, nor her of I.” He mutters.

“You are not afraid of her. You are afraid of harming her.”

His throat works. “Yes.”

“That is better than the alternative.”

He looks toward the stairs again. “I love her.”

“I know.”

“I would never hurt her.”

“You might.” His face goes white and I let the words sit. Cruel, perhaps. Useful, certainly. Arthur opens his mouth, but no sound comes.

“You might hurt her by reaching too quickly. By assuming yesterday’s 'yes' remains today’s. By treating her silence as permission, deciding your desire to comfort her matters more than her need to choose. By making her recovery into proof of your goodness.”

He looks stricken. Good. Better now than later.

“The question is not whether you are capable of harm,” I say. “We all are. The question is whether you will listen when she tells you where the edges are.”

Arthur sets the tea down with trembling hands. “How?”

“Ask.”

“I do.”

“Then believe the answer.”

His brow furrows, “If she says no?”

“Then stop.”

“If she says she does not know?”

“Stop.”

“If she reaches for me and then freezes?”

“Stop and ask.”

“And if she cries?”

“Let her.” I state.

His face crumples. “She cries so quietly.”

“I know someone who does the same.” He looks at me and I think of Olive in the garden. Olive at the top of the cellar stairs, laughing over terrible eggs, then flinching when a plate dropped three rooms away.

“She will not be fixed by being loved,” I say.

Arthur’s eyes shine.

“But she may be steadied by it.”