“I visited Lidiya, Nata,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I felt an urge to meet her.” She shivered, painfully aware of his standards of judgement. “You have her eyes,” he said. “Deep and expressive. I could see where your beauty came from. She would have been a stunner in her youth. And now, what she lacks in looks she makes up for in wisdom, I think.” His words startled Nata, but she acknowledged them with just a slight nod. “She talked of being free.” “That’s odd,” Nata said. “She told me she was happy there. When I said we could appeal her sentence, she seemed quite disinclined.” “Yes,” he agreed. “But she spoke of another kind of freedom—one she astutely guessed I’d never known.” He turned to face her then, and his face was painted with wistful regret. “I visited my father too,” he said. “I told him I’d been made a partner. He replied that he had expected I would have achieved that status much earlier in my career.” He imitated his father’s stentorian tone. “Two failed marriages, forty before including your name in the firm’s title, and incapable—apparently—of producing an heir who can carry on the proud family tradition.” “I’m a terrible disappointment to the old man,” he added, with a nervous chuckle. “Oh Karl, I’m so sorry,” she said, but he shook his head. “I’m not,” he replied. “He helped me remember who I was before he told me who I must be. I remembered the dreams I once longed to chase.” He took her hand in his and twisted her wedding ring. “You haven’t removed it,” he said, more in the form of statement than question. “Should I have?” she asked. “Not if you don’t want to, only… ” He stumbled over the words, “Your Mama said she would ask you why you would want to love when it hurts you so much.” “Maybe hurting love is the only kind I know,” she replied. “Joe is good and kind, but life in the Dreyer household was work and prayer and unquestioning conformance to Joe’s rules. He permitted very little leisure.” “Yet you adore him?” “Because of what he saved me from. Because he was not cruel and depraved like Papa.” She told him then. She confessed it all. She opened all the still festering sores and let the pus flow. He took her in his arms and let her cry on his broad shoulder, and he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head and said, “Dear God… my poor darling!” And he did not condemn her. “And now there is Sean,” she mumbled. “And loving him hurts so much. But I do love him, Karl. And I know what love can do. I have great faith in its power.” “I talked to Zac,” he said. “And?” she asked, without daring to hope. But he just shook his head and looked sad. Then his face flushed and his eyes filled with guilt and pain. He turned away from her and spoke hesitantly. “I had a visit from a detective, Nata,” he said, ”from Forensics. The accident… he thought maybe it wasn’t. It seems I might have caused it. There was a threat—mild, but from a nasty character. Gil said to ignore it, but there was something else… a photograph… a message suggesting— “Oh God!” he cried, lowering his head into his hands. “My ambition… my blind determination to make my mark on the world—”
She shivered, painfully aware of his standards of judgement.
“You have her eyes,” he said. “Deep and expressive. I could see where your beauty came from. She would have been a stunner in her youth. And now, what she lacks in looks she makes up for in wisdom, I think.”
His words startled Nata, but she acknowledged them with just a slight nod.
“She talked of being free.”
“That’s odd,” Nata said. “She told me she was happy there. When I said we could appeal her sentence, she seemed quite disinclined.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But she spoke of another kind of freedom—one she astutely guessed I’d never known.”
He turned to face her then, and his face was painted with wistful regret.
“I visited my father too,” he said. “I told him I’d been made a partner. He replied that he had expected I would have achieved that status much earlier in my career.”
He imitated his father’s stentorian tone. “Two failed marriages, forty before including your name in the firm’s title, and incapable—apparently—of producing an heir who can carry on the proud family tradition.”
“I’m a terrible disappointment to the old man,” he added, with a nervous chuckle.
“Oh Karl, I’m so sorry,” she said, but he shook his head.
“I’m not,” he replied. “He helped me remember who I was before he told me who I must be. I remembered the dreams I once longed to chase.”
He took her hand in his and twisted her wedding ring.
“You haven’t removed it,” he said, more in the form of statement than question.
“Should I have?” she asked.
“Not if you don’t want to, only… ” He stumbled over the words, “Your Mama said she would ask you why you would want to love when it hurts you so much.”
“Maybe hurting love is the only kind I know,” she replied. “Joe is good and kind, but life in the Dreyer household was work and prayer and unquestioning conformance to Joe’s rules. He permitted very little leisure.”
“Yet you adore him?”
“Because of what he saved me from. Because he was not cruel and depraved like Papa.”
She told him then. She confessed it all. She opened all the still festering sores and let the pus flow. He took her in his arms and let her cry on his broad shoulder, and he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head and said, “Dear God… my poor darling!” And he did not condemn her.
“And now there is Sean,” she mumbled. “And loving him hurts so much. But I do love him, Karl. And I know what love can do. I have great faith in its power.”
“I talked to Zac,” he said.
“And?” she asked, without daring to hope. But he just shook his head and looked sad. Then his face flushed and his eyes filled with guilt and pain. He turned away from her and spoke hesitantly.
“I had a visit from a detective, Nata,” he said, ”from Forensics. The accident… he thought maybe it wasn’t. It seems I might have caused it. There was a threat—mild, but from a nasty character. Gil said to ignore it, but there was something else… a photograph… a message suggesting—
“Oh God!” he cried, lowering his head into his hands. “My ambition… my blind determination to make my mark on the world—”