Vera scanned the entirety of the letter once. Then twice. Then her vision blurred and she could read no longer. Still, the image on one specific part was seared in her brain:

‘It is simply not safe for me to remain with the family I have long sought to protect from my affliction. When I left the house this morning, it was with no intention of returning home.’

“No intention of returning home…” Her voice was barely a whisper, cracking on the last word. So he wasn’t coming back. He’d left them for good. Somehow even though her letter had stated the same, she thought that it wasn’t real. But if he’d told Theo the same, then there wasn’t a hope in the world. When she looked up from the letter to give it back to Theo, he had walked away and disappeared into the study. Nathaniel’s study.

“Theo wait!” Vera cried, dashing after him. “You can’t just —!” But hadn’t she just had that maddening urge to do the very same thing? Still, she felt pulled by some sort of marital duty (that she clearly didn’t have anymore, Nathaniel had seen to that) to at least try and stop Theo. She hurried to his side, moving to place her hands on his shoulders. “We shouldn’t do this yet, we need to contact the lawyer.” And yet she only put a little pressure on his shoulders to try and coax him back. He might find something that would render all of this grief completely void.