"Why did you stop coming?" she finally asked.
She had not planned to say it. It slipped out into the quiet like a dropped glass.
The kitchen was very still after that. The lamp on the dresser threw a low gold light across the table, across the two mugs of tea going cold between them, and the twins' drawings still pinned to the refrigerator. Somewhere upstairs a floorboard settled. Everything in the house was asleep except the two of them.
Colin closed his eyes. "I wondered when ye'd ask."
"I'm asking."
"Aye. Ye are," he opened them again, and he did not look away. That was the first thing she noticed. He was not looking at the wall, or the window, or the tea. "Because I was a coward."
Riley said nothing. She kept her hands in her lap, where he could not see them tremble.
