Deleted Scenes

Receiving Eloise's Letter - Response to Mother's Death

When: Between 10 December, 1981 - Love and 31 October, 1982 - Without Him

Why: This one is less that I didn't like it and more that it just didn't fit. The tone I decided to take for Lavinia's grief was a sort of surreal one so that the reader, like Lavinia, felt disconnected from reality. To achieve that, I limited the number of concrete events that I had occur while I was portraying her grief because those ground the reader, and I wanted them to feel a bit set aside from the narrative, the same way Lavinia felt set aside from her life. Now, I have no idea if I got even close to achieving that, but in aiming to achieve that, I omitted this because it felt very grounded and concrete and it also wasn't super necessary in the grand scheme of Lavinia's journey.

What:

Dear Cybele,

I don't even know if I should still be using that name. I don't know if it matters. I know it's been ages since I wrote and I know you probably don't want to hear from me at all after everything that's happened, but I have news. And I don't suppose you're going to hear it from anyone else, so:

Your mother passed away. She committed suicide two days after William was sentenced. Your father is now engaged to another woman so he seems to be handling it fine.

I don't know if you care, and I can't blame you if you don't, but I just wanted to say I'm sorry. For everything. And I wish there was something I could do to change it.

Best wishes,

Briony

Lavinia stared at the paper, trying to decided if she felt anything at all. Or rather, if she would have felt anything if it weren't for that hollow thing inside her that wouldn't go away. Right now, she thought, that hollow might be a good thing. Because she didn't know what to do with this. Didn't know how to respond. Didn't know what to think or how to feel because...

Suicide. Rhea Selwyn, the woman who had run her family with an iron fist, who had preached about strength and resilience and honor, had committed suicide. The woman who had beat Lavinia senseless for the scars on her wrist had taken her own life.

And somehow, that wasn't as surprising as it should have been. Somehow, it wasn't much of anything at all.

Of course, part of that was because Lavinia was trying desperately not to think too much about it. Because if she did... she remembered the conversation she'd had with him all those years ago when Orion Black had died. She remembered the things she had told him about how it was okay not to grieve. But it was also okay if he had to. She didn't want to remember that night. The way she'd held him through. The feeling of his hands on her back and the sound of his heartbeat in her ears. She didn't want to remember him. Period. She wanted to forget he had ever existed.

And maybe, she thought, she'd just go ahead and try to forget about Rhea too. So she burned that letter. And she sent Eloise's owl back without a reply.