Page 152 of Twice Chosen

Elizabeth looked toward the meadow.

For just a moment, through the glass and spring light, she could imagine a tall young man standing beneath an oak in Hertfordshire looking terrified because a woman had mentioned a blue room chimney.

"Nothing," Elizabeth said.

Then she reconsidered.

"Everything."

Clara took her hand.

Elizabeth tapped three times.

I am here.

She closed her eyes.

This time there was no fear.

No demand for another chance.

They had been given two lives.

Twice was enough.

In the months after Darcy's death, Elizabeth found herself speaking to him in rooms where no one else could hear. She did not imagine answers. She knew better than to make grief into magic twice.

Still, she would enter the library and say, "Matthew moved your chair again," or stand before the breakfast table and murmur, "Orange marmalade. You would be pleased."

Once Clara overheard.

Elizabeth expected concern.

Instead her daughter said, "I talk to Papa too."

Elizabeth looked at her.

Clara shrugged. "Mostly when I am angry."

"He would approve."

"I know."

They sat together.

Elizabeth thought of the first life, when she had feared death because it would separate them. The second had taught her something gentler. Separation was real. It hurt. But a lifetime of being known did not vanish merely because one voice fell silent.

Darcy remained in habits, phrases, children, rooms, arguments Elizabeth could still recite, and three small movements of a thumb.

When her own death approached, she did not ask the universe for proof that he waited.

She had already been given more proof than anyone had a right to expect.

Twice chosen was enough.

Epilogue

The First Assembly