Chapter 9 - The Conversation
Evelyn tilted her head slightly, her gaze assessing him with the clinical calm she used when evaluating patients at the hospital.
"Let's step outside to the courtyard, Thomas," she said quietly. "My guests don't need a performance."
She led him through a glass side door into the covered brick terrace overlooking the frozen lake. The winter wind was cold, but the infrared heaters overhead cast a warm, crimson glow over the wrought-iron patio furniture.
Thomas didn't wait for her to sit. He reached into his coat pocket, his hands shaking violently, and pulled out an antique silver velvet box.
"I made a mistake, Evelyn," he blurted out, the words tumbling from his lips like broken glass. "A catastrophic, unforgivable mistake. Camille... it was an illusion. It was an obsession with who I thought I was at twenty-two. She doesn't love me. She doesn't even know me. She treats me like furniture in her life!"
Evelyn listened in complete, motionless silence, her arms folded comfortably across her chest.
"I haven't slept a full night since August," Thomas continued, tears spilling over his lashes and running down his weathered cheeks. "Every time I walk into that loft, all I can see is our kitchen. All I can smell is the orange glaze on those rolls. All I can hear is the silence after I closed the door."
He opened the velvet box. Resting inside was the same gold wedding band he had placed beside the sugar bowl six months ago, polished to a brilliant shine.
"Take me back, Evelyn," he sobbed, dropping to one knee on the cold brick floor, heedless of his expensive wool trousers or his dignity. "I'll sell the firm. I'll move back to Madison. We can buy a house on the lake. We can take that train to Seattle! We can start over from scratch! I love you. God help me, I have never stopped loving you!"
The wind whistled softly through the hemlock trees at the edge of the courtyard.
Evelyn looked down at the man kneeling at her feet. For twenty-two years, this man had been the sun around which her entire universe orbited. She had forgiven his late nights, smoothed over his sharp edges, and built her life around his comfort.
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A single tear welled in the corner of her eye, slipping silently down her cheek—not out of rage, and not out of pain, but out of pure, tender mourning for the young woman who had loved him so completely.
She reached down, took his trembling hands, and gently helped him stand back onto his feet.
