When the Colonel Came to the Estate

“She left with Daniel,” Charles continued. “Or she planned to. I drove her to the bus station.”

Wesley stared at him.

“You helped her?”

Charles nodded.

“It was the bravest thing I had ever done and the most cowardly, because I helped her leave and then came home and said nothing.”

The rain began then, soft at first, tapping against the sunroom windows.

Margaret’s eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall.

“She never wrote,” she said.

Charles looked at her.

“She wrote to me.”

Margaret went pale.

“What?”

“She wrote for almost a year.”

The room went colder.

Wesley took a step back, as if he could not decide whether to move closer or farther away from his father.

“You told everyone she never contacted you,” he said.

“I told everyone what my father instructed me to say.”

My father’s voice was careful.

“What happened after that year?”