The silence was overwhelming. She both wanted and didn't want him to speak, but she couldn't handle the silence. Not from Alphard. It was long and painful and terrible. But then he spoke and it wasn't any better. Walburga was willing to bet it was worse. "I don't know!" She didn't know what it was and she didn't know how it came to be. She was still only twenty-eight. Still too young to know her own children. She hadn't had them. She didn't know what the future was, just that it was. Something happened and everything just went wrong. So so wrong.
"I DON'T KNOW, ALPHARD! I DON'T KNOW!" She couldn't look at him. She couldn't do anything but try to regain control over herself. Only that control was slowly slipping away. She'd just lost everything on purpose only she hadn't wanted it. "I HAVEN'T EVEN DONE IT YET!" She wanted to cry and scream and throw things everywhere, but she couldn't. She couldn't even move. She wanted to hug him, to tell him it was the worst joke she'd ever played, but she knew it wouldn't work. Everything was broken. She was trapped between anger and hurt, going back and forth. It was perfectly exhausting. "I don't know."