He explained in broken pieces. After his release, he spent months recovering in a military hospital. Margaret was a nurse there. She stayed after her shifts and listened when he couldn’t sleep.
“She understood what I’d survived,” he said.
“Did you tell her about me?”
“Yes.”
“So you decided not to come back.”
“And?”
He looked toward a photograph on the mantel.
“She became pregnant and I proposed.”
I sat down to keep my legs from giving in.
“So you decided not to come back.”
“Were you unable to use a telephone?”
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“Did anyone forbid you from writing?”
“No.”
“Were you unable to use a telephone?”
“Eleanor, please.”
“Answer me.”
“Then it would have been simple enough to send one letter.”
“No.”
“Then it would have been simple enough to send one letter.”
Thomas wiped his eyes.
“I thought you’d hate me.”
“I might have, but at least I wouldn’t have spent my life waiting for someone who had no intention of coming home.”
