Page 53 of Redeem

Part of me marveled at how quickly I was starting to get the picture, while the other part was wary. No matter what he told me, it didn’t excuse what he had done. But maybe, possibly, I’d started to understand.

“Yes, and no. The debt had to be repaid, and I could handle that. The respect? It was another matter altogether,” he said.

I stayed quiet, looked at him as he contemplated. His brows had dropped low and I could see from his expression that he was back in his memories. I wanted to ask what it meant, but didn’t know if I was ready to.

“I haven’t thought about him, any of them, for years,” he said.

The words came out of the blue, and when I looked at him I saw something like wonder in his expression. He seemed as surprised by what he had said as I was, and I wanted to interpret what that meant. I couldn’t, though. I realized then that I was so distant from who he had been, and saw, perhaps for the first time, that maybe he was to.

“It…hurts?” I asked.

He shook his head quickly. “It should. But it doesn’t. It’s not that… It just, it feels like a different person, like it wasn’t my life. It’s stupid. I know it was, I know what happened, but it doesn’t feel like it was me.”

“It’s not stupid,” I said.

I didn’t expand on that, didn’t tell him I knew exactly what he meant, that I understood. I felt the same way. The life that I had lived as a child, the one that I had shared with my husband, both of them seemed so distant, like something that had happened to another person. Yes, I understood exactly what Ciprian meant.

Wondered if that understanding might have other implications, ones I dared not consider.

“So what happened to your father?” I asked.

“He was killed.”

That he said it so matter-of-factly only underscored the shock of the statement.

I had known where this was going, knew it couldn’t end up in any other place, but still, to hear him say it affected me. It shouldn’t be possible, but my heart broke for him. I had never really had a family, not like his, and that had come with its own kind of pain. But to have one, lose it. Was something else altogether, something I had difficulty fathoming.

I wanted to go to him, but I couldn’t. No matter how unknowingly it had been, I had betrayed my husband’s memory enough. Wouldn’t make it worse by comforting his killer.

“What happened?” I asked.

I told myself I was just interested in the story, wanted to see how he had become what he was, but in truth I could see that telling me this, thinking through it was helpful to him.

And, despite everything, I wanted to help him.

“He got out of line. Said something that he shouldn’t have said to someone he shouldn’t have said it to,” Ciprian replied.

“So they killed him?” I asked.

He nodded slowly. “Respect,” he said, like that explained it all.

I shook my head. “That’s bullshit, too. You can’t kill someone over words,” I said.

“It’s nice that you think that, but it’s not true. Words, status, position. Respect. Those are the only things that matter,” he said.

He said it with such solemn belief, I was stunned silent. I couldn’t refute what he’d said, didn’t have a leg to stand on. Besides, what did I know of it?

Nothing.

I leaned back in the chair, pulled the blanket around me tighter and then waited. My heart had started to slow, but the numbness had faded with it. Emotions ping-ponged through my body at dizzying speeds, and I had little idea what to do with those feelings.

So I waited.

He seemed in no hurry to speak, something that frustrated me.

I wanted to push, but couldn’t make myself. I needed to escape and his story was the only thing that would allow that to happen. When he told me what had happened, it reminded me again that he had taken the person with whom I’d planned to build a life, maybe the need to comfort him, the desire I still felt even now would go away.

I could only hope, because there was no other option. I couldn’t feel sympathy for him, but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling it.