When Liam heard everything, he felt no relief. He felt ashamed.
Yes, Paige had poisoned Nora. Yes, Gwen had been an accomplice out of ignorance, out of pride, out of that cruel need to be right.
But he had closed the door. He had been the husband who preferred to suspect rather than ask.
The husband who let his sister humiliate his wife at their own dinner table. The husband who saw tears and mistook them for guilt.
On the third day, Nora woke up completely. Liam entered the hospital room with trembling hands.
He had bought flowers, but seeing her pale face, he understood the absurdity of the gesture. No bouquet could hide what had happened.
Nora was lying down, looking out the window. She had deep dark circles under her eyes and a bandage on her wrist where they had inserted the IV.
“Nora,” he whispered.
She didn’t turn around immediately. When she finally looked at him, Liam felt something break inside him.
There was no hatred in her eyes, which would have been easier to bear. There was weariness, an enormous weariness, as if she no longer had the strength even to complain.
“I know everything,” he said. “About your mother. About Paige. About her brother.”
Nora closed her eyes. “I tried to save him.”
“I know,” Liam replied.
“Nobody believed me,” she said softly.
Liam lowered his head. “Me neither.”
She took a deep breath, and a tear rolled down her temple. “That was the most painful part.”
Liam sat down next to the bed, but didn’t try to touch her. “I’m not here to ask for your forgiveness today,” he said. “I have no right. I’ve come to tell you that I’m going to confess everything, what Paige did, what Gwen did, and what I did. Because even if the law doesn’t punish me like them, I know I failed you too.”
Nora looked at him in silence. “My mom needs the surgery,” she said after a while.
“It’s already paid for,” Liam replied. “I spoke with the hospital in Detroit. Not to buy your forgiveness, just because it was what I should have done from the beginning, which was to be with you.”
Nora covered her mouth with her hand and she cried silently. Liam also cried.
They didn’t hug. There was no soap opera-style reconciliation.
