It was shame. I will not pretend our parting was gentle. Margaret had written. We said things in grief that grief does not fully excuse. When my son died, I needed someone to blame, and you were the nearest thing to hand.
And I chose to blame you rather than face the fact that I had lost my only child, and there was no one to blame at all. That was easier. It was also wrong. I have had time to consider it, and time being what it is, I have had a great deal of it. I hear you have made a life out west and married again, and become a mother to children not your own.
I hear you stood up to a powerful man and did not flinch. I find I am not surprised. You were always stronger than we gave you credit for. Perhaps that strength frightened us. Perhaps it was easier to call it coldness than to admit we envied it.
I do not ask your forgiveness as I have not earned it. I ask only that you know the woman we described in that terrible letter. The one we sent to your hearing, which I understand was read aloud, was never you. It was the woman we needed you to be so that we could live with what we did. I am sorry for that letter above all else.
I am sorry you had to hear those words in front of strangers. They were never true. Eleanor finished it and for a long moment she said nothing at all. Well, Nathaniel asked quietly, "What does she want?" "Nothing."
Eleanor folded the letter slowly. "She doesn't want anything. That's the strange part." She looked up at him and to her own surprise, her eyes were dry. She wrote to tell me the terrible things they said about me were never true.
That they only said them because they needed someone to blame for losing their son. She says she's sorry about the letter they sent to the hearing. That above everything else, she's sorry I had to hear those words in front of the whole town. Nathaniel's jaw was tight. A little late for sorry.
It is. Eleanor agreed. Two years late and she didn't even apologize for the rest of it, only the letter. She turned the folded paper over in her hands. And you know what I feel reading it?