He Swore Flowers Would Kill Him, Then Came Home Smelling of Roses novel · Chapter 17 of 32

Chapter 17: The Rose Girl

I had no answer for Torin about the Moon-line.

I had lain awake beside him with the word going round in my head.

If anyone knew why Maureen kept that book, it was the woman who wrote in it.

So I went to the guest cottage at dawn.

Sabine was awake. She sat on the edge of the bed in a borrowed nightgown, with her knees drawn up and her stitched lip split open again.

She saw my face and did not stand.

"Say it," she said. "Whatever you came to say."

I shut the door behind me.

"Why did you do it?"

"Money, first." She did not look away. "Maureen paid well, and the shop was failing."

"And second?"

"Second, I wanted him to look at me."

"He was my husband."

"He was a man who sat across from me every Tuesday and told me he was lonely." Her voice rose. "You never looked at him either, Clara. You looked at the floor, and then you looked at your hands."

"I buried my garden for him."

"And he hated you for it!"

I did not move.

"He did," Sabine said, quieter. "He'd come into the stockroom and put his head in my lap. He said you were so careful with him, it made him want to scream."

"He lied to me for six years."

"I know." Her eyes filled. "He lied to me too. He said he was going to leave you. He said it every month."

"Did you believe him?"

"Every month."

She wiped her face with the heel of her hand.

"He loves me," she said. "In his way. He really does. Whatever else you think, that part's true."

I stared down at her.

I had wanted this scene for days. I had wanted to hear her beg, or lie, or spit.

Instead she sat on a stranger's bed and told me the truth, and it did not help.

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