The sound of Norman’s weeping filled the silent kitchen, silent no more. Agnes sat on the stool, looking at her husband’s shaking body above her on the kitchen table. They’d finally come clean to each other, but it all surprised her so. Norman was crying for her, weeping, sobbing, give it whatever name – but she felt this even line of serene calm descend from the sky and into her body. Her pulse ran slow, her breaths shallow. And she felt no urge to tap her fingers, to bite her lips.
At what point in their marriage had the tide turned? What was it she’d done – or he’d done – that had shut down forever that path to intimacy? Maybe when she went to the piano competition against his will, maybe when Mary Alden came back into Norman’s life, maybe when she’d conceived Harold – no, maybe it all went back to the day she’d seduced him. He’d felt obligated to marry her. But, for so many years, she’d felt they were two happy ducks in water – but what did she ever know?
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