“You let her believe you were dead?”
“I assumed she’d moved on.”
“She didn’t,” Daniel said.
Thomas looked around at their faces.
“I loved Margaret. I love all of you. I was trying to do right by my family.”
“I’m sorry. I thought he’d told me the whole story.”
“And I wasn’t family,” I said.
He flinched.
“You were everything to me once.”
“Once,” I repeated.
Daniel walked me outside. At the car, he stopped and faced me.
“I’m sorry. I thought he’d told me the whole story.”
“I should have asked more questions.”
“You believed him.”
“I should have asked more questions.”
“Now you know to.”
I asked him to take me to the memorial.
He drove without turning on the radio.
At the memorial, I stopped before the stone honoring those who had never come home.
I took it from my purse and studied our young faces.
I placed my white rose at its base.
