her chess.
“Think before you act,” he would tell her. “Every choice matters.”
When Emily became sick with a fever, Richard stayed beside her through the night, reading stories and changing the damp cloth on her forehead.
“You should have woken me,” I said.
“You needed sleep,” he answered simply.
Eventually, I stopped searching for a motive behind every kind thing he did.
There was no trap.
There was no demand waiting at the end.
I cared deeply for Richard, though I never truly thought of him as a husband
