She walked back to the packhouse slowly.Not because she needed the time to compose herself. She was composed. She had been composed in the garden and she was composed now, moving through the pack grounds in the late afternoon light with the particular quality of someone who is exactly where they intended to be emotionally, which was not a managed state but a genuine one.She was thinking about his face when he said the two words.She had watched people say sorry for various things in various contexts over the past two years. She had watched it said diplomatically, which was sorry as political instrument, and said defensively, which was sorry as shield, and said transactionally, which was sorry as opening bid toward a desired outcome. She had become, through Vrenna's education and her own extended observation, reasonably accurate at identifying which kind she was receiving.What she had received in the garden was none of those.It was the kind that people arrive at after they have exh
Read more