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He held up his hand. “I have something I’d like to share with you.”

She frowned as he turned away from her to enter his bedroom. When he returned a few minutes later, he carried a leather book.

He held it toward her. “This is a journal I kept while I was away from you. I wrote about the things I never thought a gentleman could say to his grieving wife. I believed letters about such things would burden you when we were so far apart. Yet emotions were building up inside of me, and I had no other way to express them than to write them just for myself. But maybe that wasn’t fair to you.”

Tears filled her eyes as she looked at the journal. She slowly took it in both hands as if it might be heavy with the weight of all the unspoken things between them.

And without another word, he retreated to his room and closed the door.

Before Lucy could even open the journal, there was a soft knock on the door of the suite. She let in the hotel maid and accepted the woman’s help undressing for the evening. The journal lay on her pillow, waiting for her.

Once she was alone, wrapped in a light dressing gown, she sat upon the bed, with a pillow cushioning her back, and opened the leather cover.

And opened a side of her husband she’d never seen before.

The man she’d thought of as so strong that grief hadn’t affected him the same way it had her, was also a man desolate with the loss of their daughter, forced to be away from home and family for a duty he regretted, though honor-bound to accept it.

He captured his memories of Anna in a way that left Lucy sobbing over some of them and then smiling through tears when she but turned the page.

Two hours later, she closed the book and pressed it to her heart. She put her head back against the pillow, feeling drained but somehow whole again.

Leaving the journal behind, she moved quietly through the suite. It was very late, and Reggie might be asleep. She didn’t want to disturb him, so she opened the door just a crack, hoping to see if he was abed.

She saw his profile as he sat before the bare fireplace. He held something in his hands, and she thought his shoulders were shaking.

“Reggie?” she whispered.

He looked up and moved to put away the thing he held, but in two steps she was at his side. In the soft glow of lamplight, she saw that he held a miniature of their daughter.

She caught her breath.

“Do forgive me,” he said hoarsely. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you. Perhaps even the journal was too much.”

“No, don’t think that,” she cried, and pulled up a chair beside him.

Her face was still wet with tears, and she saw that his was, too. She put her hands over his and they held the photo of Anna together, their hands trembling, their pain shared.

“It was too easy to forget these feelings,” he whispered, “too easy to forget that I could not be there for you as a husband should. I don’t think my guilt will ever leave me. And that makes me fear I don’t deserve you.”

“You might suffer from guilt, but I suffer from fear. I’m so afraid to have another child, to love so fiercely and risk losing it all again. And I’m even more afraid to find out that perhaps I can’t have any more children, since I never conceived again after Anna’s birth. What would our marriage be like then, with only the ghost of a child between us?”

“In the first year of our marriage, we didn’t have a child,” he said, “and I had never been happier in my life. I know it’s because I love you so much. I am content to live at your side, having whatever blessing God grants us, whether it’s children or just a simple life together.”

“But…Anna…” And then she started to cry again.

Reggie stood up and swept her into his arms, settling back into the wingback chair to hold her close. She cried as she hadn’t in many months, knowing that her dear husband was the one person who understood her grief. Now she knew and truly understood that he’d been suffering, too.

Memories of Anna flashed through her mind, and instead of holding them close, she reminded Reggie about the time Anna had followed the little boy next door back to his home. After a frantic search, they’d found them together marveling over baby bunnies.

They shared other memories aloud for the first time, and it seemed to finally bring back the peace that had eluded them for a year. To not have such memories would be far worse than the terrible loss of Anna.

Lucy felt disoriented when she awoke in the morning. The walls looked different in the curtained glow of sunrise. Reggie must have put her to bed, although she didn’t remember it. Her face felt chapped from crying, but she felt a languorous peace that hadn’t comforted her in so long.

She rolled slowly onto her back and found Reggie propped up on his elbow, staring down at her solemnly, although she thought she saw a twinkle in his eye.

“How are you feeling?” he asked softly.

She smiled and stretched her arms above her head, arching to ease any remaining stiffness. “I feel better than I have in a long time.”