Into The Darkness

by Kathy

  "We can argue about that later."

  Again, and for the last time, he prevented her from opening the door. "You've got him back. But you've lost her. And that, too, is partly my doing."

  "I lost her a long time ago," Meg said softly. "When she abandoned a child who needed her in order to drown her guilt in alcohol and depression. I always knew that, though I concentrated my hatred on him because—because I loved him best. For a while I had lost them both. I don't even hate her any longer; I've become, I hope, more tolerant of human weakness. God knows I've made plenty of mistakes myself. If I could only be sure she didn't—that she wasn't. . . ."

  He could have offered her the false comfort of denial. But as she had learned—and learned to love—soothing lies were a variety of insult Riley would never offer her. "She must have known, on one level of consciousness at least. It was just too much of a coincidence—the same motel, the same name. . . . But do her justice; she didn't let him get away with it because she was too cowardly to confess her own fault; there was no way she could prove what she suspected. She couldn't face George again, though. She couldn't even stand to stay in the same world with him. If there are degrees of suffering, hers was so far beyond anything she had coming to her. . . . Are you crying? I didn't mean to make you feel bad."

  "I don't feel bad. I love you, Riley."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "Riley!"

  "I love you too."

  He let her open the door. "Don't let the decor inhibit you," Meg said, smiling at his expression when he saw the frills and ribbons and lacy pillows.

  "It would take more than that to inhibit me. This is for real, Meg—Mignon. I'll never let you change your mind now. All the same . . . didn't you go a little overboard on the roses?"

  Laughing, she drew him into the room and shut the door, closing in the roses, closing out the snow and the winter cold forever.