Dearest Journal,

We leave today for our new home, our new life. I feel guilty looking forward to it with all that has happened. Yet it is the truth. I am tried of dwelling in the past, a shroud of sorrow surrounding me. I shall be happy to find it lifted in favor of our life together instead of the shadows of our past.

I stopped in mother’s rooms one last time last night. It was almost as if she were there with me. Her brush where she always leaves it on the table, her smelling salts and perfumes precisely as she left them. There was even a letter open on her desk. I did not recognize the handwriting but the contents soon revealed the nature of it. Just to think on it I am furious. It appears Mr. Lecuyer has had his vengeance. With mother’s nerves and ill health I can do nothing but blame him for mother’s death. While I played my part in it, it was Mr. Lecuyer who took her last breathe, her very will to live. His anger was understandable, but it should have been directed at myself not at mother. I do not know how I shall forgive him, but perhaps in time I shall find forgiveness for my own actions.

Lucille