To her satisfaction his words, rather than wound her so easily as they once would have, only mollified her. After the way he'd treated her throughout her illness he had no right to speak so spitefully, he had wronged her, she had the moral high ground.

"Not at all." she replied tartly, biting back a barb that wouldn't do her any favors at this point. "You have made it abundantly clear, for many years but especially these last several months, that you care nothing for me even in death. I'm a thorn in your side, a terrible inconvenience. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd rather I had died, once the funeral was over you wouldn't have had to think of me again. But I digress. I'm not here to accuse or berate you, I no longer care whether you hate me or not." She might not care but that didn't mean she wasn't holding back a plethora of scathing remarks. "I'm hardly innocent myself, I've treated you appallingly in the past. My point is that we're terribly matched. We should never have married."

---