“I need time,” she said. “I need to think about all of this properly, away from this house, in my own space. I need to feel what I feel without having to be anyone’s maid while I feel it.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“And I have 1 question,” she said. “That I need you to answer truthfully.”
“Anything,” he said.
She looked at him directly.
“Did you ever think about us?” she asked. “Even once in 30 years, did you ever wonder what happened to her? To the baby?”
He held her gaze. He did not answer quickly. He did not reach for the comfortable answer. He sat with the question the way it deserved to be sat with.
“Yes,” he said finally. “Not often. I worked very hard to make sure it wasn’t often.” He paused. “But yes. In the quiet moments, the ones I couldn’t fill with work or plans or the next thing, yes. I wondered.”
He looked at her.
“I was just too afraid of the answer to go looking for it.”
Rebecca nodded.
She stood up slowly. She picked up her bag from beside the chair and held it in both hands.
“Good night, sir,” she said.
Then she paused, because that word—sir—felt strange in her mouth now in a way it had not before, like wearing a coat that no longer fit.