The silence that followed Miriam's confession was not a comfortable one.
It was the kind of silence that had weight to it, pressing down on everyone in the room, filling every corner.
Isabella looked at the letter in her hand. Then at Miriam on the floor. Then at nothing in particular, which was the look of a woman who had too many thoughts arriving at exactly the same time and could not decide which one to follow first.
"Why?" Isabella said finally. The hundred other questions she had were behind it, pushing, but that was the only one that made it out.
Miriam looked up at her.
"Because I was frightened," she said. "And I have been frightened for so long that I stopped noticing it was fear. I just thought that was what life felt like."
She looked at her hands, turning them over slowly in her lap like she was looking for something written on them.
