第4章 第5節 父と娘
Father and Daughter
Thomas sat by the small window, his hands folded and still.
For a while, neither of them found any words to say.
"I have lied to you for your whole life," he began.
Nora had waited twenty years to hear him say something true.
He told her that he was dying, and that little time remained.
The doctors had given him a few months, perhaps less.
"I have not come to ask you to me," he said.
He said that he had come to tell the truth in public.
"Your mother did not drown; you have always sensed that."
He explained that he had helped her that night.
"I let the town believe she was dead, to keep her alive."
Nora asked him why he had stayed silent for so long.
He answered that fear had made a of him.
"Edwin has held my like a rope around my neck."
Then his voice dropped, and he leaned closer to her.
"There is a recording that can end all of this," he said.
He told her that the master tape had been in two.
"Half of it your mother trusted to me, years ago."
Nora felt the ground shift quietly beneath her feet.
"Where is your half now?" she asked, hardly breathing.
He said that he had carried it with him all this way.
From his coat he drew a small, worn reel of tape.
"I have kept it hidden from Edwin for twenty years," he said.
For the first time, Nora reached out and held his hand.
The anger of a had not disappeared, but it had softened.