Daniel turned quickly. “Abigail, wait.”
She looked down at the ring box near his boot. “You were going to propose to me in front of a woman you abandoned and children you erased.”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“No,” she said. “It is exactly that simple.”
Then she walked toward the door.
Daniel took a step after her, but Captain Hale’s voice stopped him.
“Colonel.”
Daniel froze.
Abigail passed me.
For one second, she paused. Her face was pale with humiliation, but there was no hatred in it.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
I nodded. “So am I.”
The front doors opened. Cold air swept through the hall. Then Abigail was gone, her heels clicking across the stone steps where Margaret’s shattered crystal still glittered in the snow.
The Christmas music playing softly from some hidden speaker seemed grotesque now.
Joy to the World.
Margaret looked at my children.
