And that was the closest Walter Carter came in her presence to saying that he approved. She received it the way she had received everything from him as information to be valued without pressing for more than what was given. On the drive back to Caldwells, sitting beside Nathaniel on the seat of the ranch wagon with the November stars spread out above them and the cold air making her grateful for her coat. She said, "He's afraid of losing you." Nathaniel glanced at her. The loneliness he described.
She said he's watched you carry it and he's felt responsible and he hasn't known what to do about it. So, he's managed it instead. Managed what you did and who you saw and what he thought your choices should be. She paused. He's a man who manages what he can't fix.
I understand that particular pattern. He was quiet for a moment. Are you describing him or yourself? She thought about it. Both probably, she said.
But I'm trying to stop. He reached over and took her hand right there in the cold dark with no audience and no reason except that he wanted to. I know, he said. She held on the week after dinner at the Carter Ranch. Victoria Harrington came to Caldwell's one more time.
Amelia was alone in the kitchen when she heard the knock at the back door, which was not a Victoria Harrington kind of entrance. And when she opened it, she found Victoria standing on the backst step looking like a woman who had argued with herself extensively about whether to be here and had not fully resolved the argument. Mrs. Harrington, Amelia said, I won't keep you long, Victoria said. Come in, Amelia said.
Victoria came in. She sat at the kitchen table without being asked, which was very Victoria. And she folded her hands on the table in front of her and looked at them for a moment before looking at Amelia. I owe you an apology, Victoria said. She said it quickly.
The way you say things when you've been rehearsing them and need to get them out before you lose nerve for the summer grabbing your wrist. That was She stopped. That was not who I want to be. Amelia sat down across from her. She looked at Victoria Harrington, really looked at her, the way she looked at accounts and records and people's faces when she was trying to understand rather than react and saw something she had not expected.
Not contrition exactly, not quite, but the particular exhaustion of a woman who has maintained a very elaborate position for a very long time and is beginning to feel the weight of it. Why are you here? Amelia asked. Not unkindly. Victoria looked at her hands.