He Said Losing My Emotions Was Better, Then He Begged Me to Feel Again novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Study

Orson's POV

I let myself into my mother's house at one in the morning with the garden key I had carried since I was twelve.

The housekeeper's door was shut, and the hall clock was ticking.

I went up the back stairs in my socks.

My father's study had been locked for thirty years, and I had never once asked why.

The key hung on a nail inside the clock case, where I had seen my mother put it a hundred times.

I had never been curious.

I was now, because for twenty-seven days I had lived inside a woman who was curious about everything.

The door opened with a dry click.

It smelled of cold pipe tobacco and paper.

A fountain pen lay on the blotter with the cap off, dried out long ago.

In the top drawer was a bundle of envelopes tied with kitchen string.

The first one said, in a hand I knew from my school reports: For Orson, when he is old enough to be angry.

I sat down in my father's chair and read it by the light of my phone.

*Orson, I chose your mother at the Stone because my mother told me to. The Draper house needed the Clendenin land and a wife who would not make trouble. I knew it was false when I said it. I said it anyway. I am forty-three years old and I have never been brave.*

*It took me a week to understand what I was carrying. Your mother's grief was in me, and her fear, and every small thing she used to enjoy. Under all of it was something I had not looked for. She loved me. I never knew. She never said so, and I never asked, and the Moon took it from her and gave it to me, and I carry it every day and cannot give it back.*

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