I looked at her.
“That is their decision.”
“I know.”
She lowered her eyes.
“I also owe you an apology.”
I waited.
“I blamed you for the choices I made. I told myself that you were keeping the girls away because it was easier than admitting that I had abandoned them.”
Her voice trembled.
“Julian made it easier for me to stay away, but I chose to listen to him. I chose not to call. I chose not to come back. And when people asked about my daughters, I lied.”
For the first time, she looked directly at me.
“You didn’t deserve that.”
I thought about the man I had been fifteen years earlier.
The man who had begged her to stay.
The man who had wondered whether he had failed as a husband.
The man who had spent years believing that if he had earned more money, bought a bigger house, or taken her on better holidays, perhaps she would never have left.
