Chapter II

Written December 16, 1918.

I have not written for some time. In truth, I had almost forgotten the habit of it. The days passed quietly, and for a little while, I allowed myself to live them without record… as though they belonged only to me. It felt almost… sacred. My precious moments alone, simply enjoying the sun on my skin, and the peace in my soul.

But I find now that I must write again. If only so that it may be known that I was here. That I lived, and felt, and endured. That whatever may come of me, my passion for living was something he could never break.

I remember the morning the war ended: November 11, 1918. I awoke not with a start, but with the sun. The light had already crept across the quilt and climbed the wall, and for a moment I lay there, confused, as though I had missed something urgent. But the house was still. No raised voice. No hurried footstep. No sharp clearing of a throat to announce displeasure. Only quiet, calm, peace. I had forgotten how gently a morning can arrive when one is not bracing for it. I stepped out onto the dewy grass to retrieve the newspaper, a contented smile resting softly upon my face. And then I read the headline.

The Armistice. The eleventh hour. The war was over.

I felt the smile fall from my lips at once. As the day wore on, people began to dance in the streets. Church bells rang. Families wept with relief. But I… I stood there, still as a statue, unable to move. I stared at the words on the paper, willing them to change. But the ink was dry, and within the hour, everybody knew. It felt wrong, not to celebrate the end of a war… and yet I could not. I knew what this would mean for me. Charles would be coming home.

In the days that followed, the house remained quiet. I brought roses in from the garden, blooms that had opened in my husband’s absence. I remember wondering, then, if I too had been opening… and had only just paused long enough to notice. My time apart from Charles had changed me. This was not the marriage I had dreamt of. I want a child, two, at least. And naturally, a loving husband to help me raise them. But the thought of bringing a child into a home with Charles… a man so violent and so unpredictable… filled me with a quiet and constant fear — one that was only reaffirmed a few days later, when I came across an old photograph my friend Margaret had taken just before he left for the war. She had wanted to capture the bruise along my cheek; proof, she said, that I must never convince myself it had not been so bad. I refused her. I was determined to only look forward, and enjoy the peace that had, at last, found me.

Months had passed since the train carried him away. It is a strange thing to admit that I missed him… and yet did not miss the fear that once followed the sound of his footsteps. In the stillness of my home, my thoughts wandered more freely than they once dared. And more often than I should like to admit, they returned to my youth… and to the gentle doctor whose kindness I have never been able to forget. It was there, in the quiet of my husband’s absence, and the wild nature of my own mind, that I began to find myself again. Even among the roses, opening so fearlessly to the sun, I felt something within me begin to unfurl. For the first time in longer than I can say, I knew something very near to happiness. And I despised myself for it. What sort of wife feels relief in her husband’s absence? What sort of woman still prays that no harm has befallen the man who has caused her such pain? I cannot account for a heart that carries both longing and fear… nor for a mind that wanders, as mine does, to another man (who is himself, surely, married with children by now). And still… hope began to bloom within me. The quiet, dangerous hope that perhaps I might yet have a life that was my own. A life in which I might know happiness and, at last, be at peace. It did not last.

On December 2, a letter arrived. I knew its contents before I had even broken the seal. The paper trembled in my hands, though I could not say whether it was from the morning chill… or something deeper stirring beneath my skin. The words of my husband were simple. He would be returning home. I read the lines again, as though they might change if I willed them to. As though time itself might take pity on me, and everything might remain as it had been: quiet… still… safe. But the ink did not waver. Nor did the truth it carried.

I had spent so long learning what it meant to breathe without fear. To wake without dread coiled quietly beneath my ribs. To exist without bracing for what might come next. And then, slowly… I felt it return. Not all at once, nor violently. But like the grim shadow of death itself stretching across the floor at dusk, I knew, with a certainty I could not escape, that the peace I had found had only ever been borrowed.

The days that followed were not the same. The house remained quiet, but it was no longer gentle. It lingered instead, like a guillotine hanging above my head. The roses grew heavy with rain. I had not noticed when the first of them began to fade. As in all things, they had been changing quietly… just as I had. I envy them. They did not ask permission to move forward. Each bloom opens when it must, and withers just the same, whether one is ready for it or not. It seemed ironic that on the eve of my husband’s return, that was the time they decided to drop their petals.

I had prayed without cease for Charles’ safety during the war. But once I received that letter, I found myself praying that he might return to me a different man. I am not quite sure what possessed me to prepare for his arrival as I did… only that I wished, in some small and foolish way, to appear as I once was to him. I wore the leopard dress he admired. I took care with my hair. My hand trembled as I opened the door, and I managed the smallest of smiles, my fear allowed for nothing more. It felt, even then, like an act of courage. Perhaps even… defiance. To stand there. To face him. To welcome home a man I have long known I could not escape.

His lovemaking tonight was rough… more so than I have ever known them to be in our marriage. And while he now sleeps soundly, without a care in the world, I lie awake and write, my pen bearing witness to every trace of physical and emotional agony left in their wake, all under the guise of his rights as my husband. Suffice it to say, I am convinced Charles has not returned a different man. Or if he has… he has not changed for the better. In fact, I believe he has come back to me worse than when he left. Now what will become of me? What future awaits me if all my prayers and pleas for help go unheard and unanswered?