“I did not say it was.”
“It is entirely different.”
“I believe you.”
“You sound as though you do not.”
Emma’s mouth curved sadly. “I sound as though I know you.”
That, unfortunately, was difficult to refute.
Frances sat at last, because standing had begun to feel theatrical. “I cannot stop thinking about them,” she admitted, and the words came out more quietly than she intended. “Either of them.”
Sophia’s face softened. “That is not a crime.”
“It feels like one.” Frances looked down at the ribbon. “I told myself I was right to stay. I told myself truth mattered more than comfort, and trust mattered more than affection. I still believe that. I do.”
Emma watched her carefully. “But?”
Frances swallowed. “But the house is so quiet.”
Sophia looked close to tears. Frances hated that, too. It was much easier to be wounded when no one else looked wounded on one’s behalf.
Emma leaned forward. “Are you certain you made the right choice?”
“Yes,” Frances said at once, but she said it too quickly.
Emma noticed but she didn’t speak.
Frances drew a breath and tried again. “I couldn’t stay in a marriage without truth. I couldn’t stand before him and beg for honesty only to be told it was not mine to have. What was I to do? Smile? Accept silence because he delivered it nobly?”
“No,” Emma agreed. “You were right to ask.”
“Then why do you look at me as though I have made some terrible mistake?”
“Because two things may be true at once.”
Frances frowned. “That is a very inconvenient habit of truth.”
“Yes,” Emma chuckled. “It often is.”
Sophia twisted her fingers in her lap. “Perhaps he wanted to tell you.”
Frances looked at her. “Then he might have done so.”
“Perhaps he could not.”
“That is what he said.”
“And perhaps,” Sophia continued, gaining courage with every word, “he meant it.”
Frances looked away.
Emma’s voice was careful. “Sometimes people keep things hidden for reasons that are not selfish.”
The words found their mark before Frances could guard against them. Emma did not press immediately. She let the silence sit, as she had always been better at patience than Frances.
Then she said, “Do you remember what happened before Philip and I married?”
