I pressed my fingers against my lips.
Then Thomas wrote about what I deserved.
Mr. Bennett had warned him not to phrase it that way.
Apparently, Bennett thought it sounded ominous.
“He was right,” I muttered.
Thomas continued:
People spend too much time deciding what others deserve.
My children may decide you deserve nothing.
Some may decide you married me too quickly.
Others may decide we were destined for each other and turn fifty years of real marriages into an inconvenience in a romantic story.
They are all wrong.
Then came the words I needed most.
You deserved the life you had with Robert.
Evelyn deserved the life she had with me.
I deserved to love her.
I deserved to find you again.
And you deserved to be loved without being asked to erase any part of yourself.
The evening sunlight warmed the page.
Thomas continued:
The money is for security.
