And something in her face shifted. Some last resistance, the instinctive independence of a woman who had spent too long managing everything alone, quietly, slowly, let go.
She nodded.
Then she sat there for a moment. Not moving. Not lying down. Her hands in her lap and her eyes somewhere in the middle distance between the window and the wall, and Julian could see it before she said anything, could see the thing gathering, the thing that had been waiting for the right moment of stillness to surface.
"I'm sorry, Julian." Her voice was very small.
She sat up straighter, as if the words required her to be upright to say them properly, and her eyes filled in the way they had been filling all day quickly, without warning, the tears arriving before the expression had time to prepare for them.
"I so wanted…" She stopped. Tried again.
What she wanted to say was enormous, and she didn't have the words that were large enough for it.
