I tried to reassure him. “Charles, it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident. A terrible, horrible accident.”
But I couldn’t shake the feeling he was still hiding something.
In the days that followed, Charles seemed lighter, as if confessing had lifted a weight.
But I noticed other things. He’d disappear for hours on “walks,” returning exhausted, sometimes pale. One evening, I hugged him and smelled antiseptic.
