(Nathaniel)
For two days I told myself Amelia was the one who'd broken the peace of my house.
It was the easy read. She'd raised her hand to her own sister in my kitchen. She'd slapped her. She'd thrown Emilia out with a coldness I didn't know she had in her. A reasonable man looks at that and sees a wife who lost control, and I let myself see it, because it asked nothing of me. It let me keep the shape of the story I'd believed for two years. Amelia was the difficult one. Emilia was the one who'd been wronged.
The trouble was that the story kept snagging on small things.
Emilia stayed on in the east room, wounded and quiet, and I found I couldn't sit with her the way I once had. When I tried, something in me pulled back. She spoke of the slap in a soft, injured voice, and every time s
