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“The royal advisors will probably have issues with a princess who wishes to fly,” he said.
She looked at him fiercely. “Flying is part of who I am.”
“I understand that. Though, they may not wish you to fly me.”
“Oh, why? Because I crashed with you just the once?”
“Maybe.”
They went back to the seating area of the plane, and settled in. And he thought now might be the correct time to broach the topic of fidelity.
“I do not mind if you take other lovers,” he said.
She went visibly red. “Well, I mind,” she said. “And I wouldn’t want you to.”
“I see.”
“What?”
“I had thought that might be the case.”
“That I would have an issue with my… My husband sleeping with other women? That seems pretty par for the course.”
“Not for people like me.”
“Well, I’m people like me. I want… I don’t want you going around being with other people. I don’t want you to lie to me. Or trick me.”
“A marriage is very long,” he said. “Who knows what you want in the future. Perhaps you will crave some adventure.”
“Then I’ll go fly a plane in an ice storm in Montana. I’m not especially amped for adventure at the moment.”
“You have had a lot of it lately.”
“I never really saw flying as an adventure before,” she said. “My dad was a pilot. Before everything went wrong.”
“Before your mother died?”
“Yes,” she said.
He wondered what that was like. To have experienced a loss like that, but not to be haunted by the specter of the person.
Not to know whether or not she could come back. It was a whole different situation from what had happened with him, and objectively a bigger tragedy. And yet in some ways he did think she might be right. It might be easier to reconcile. Because at least then nobody chose to leave you.
And they couldn’t come back when they felt like it.
Couldn’t reinjure you, reopen the wound.
You’d have no one to flaunt your lifestyle at, no one to fight with even when they weren’t there.
“Your father didn’t recover from that?”
“No.”
“In many ways, I don’t think my father recovered from my mother’s betrayal.”
“Did he develop a debilitating drinking habit?”
“No,” he said. “My father became more of what he was. Ruthless. Firm and controlled. Not cruel, not in any regard. When I say he’s ruthless, I mean with himself. If there have ever been other women since my mother, I have not borne witness to it. Neither has the nation. My father took all the transgressions of my mother inside of himself, and turned them into honor.”