I almost did not tell him that evening.
Not because I had changed my mind. Because the evening arranged itself in the ordinary way that evenings did and there was dinner and Helena was at the table and the conversation moved the way it moved and the moment kept not arriving in a way that felt right.
Helena caught my eye once across the table.
Just once. A small look that said nothing except soon and I looked back at her and gave her the slight nod that meant I know.
After dinner Damien built the fire in the sitting room because the temperature outside had dropped and the house felt it in its old walls. Helena sat with us for a while and then went to bed at her new earlier time that she had accepted without complaint which told me more about the difficult night than anything she had sai
