Mme. Giry had spent many days sitting in a chair, staring at the fire in the grate. All of their clothing was new, so she didn't even have a stocking to darn, and she had not yet bought any new knitting needles and yarn. Her heart was as wrung out and hollow as when Jules had died. Jules had not known about Erik, the man she now called her brother. Like a brother, he had held her hand when Jules died. While everyone else had counseled her to be strong and stoic for four-year-old Meg, Erik had allowed her to cry. He had sat next to her silently and simply let her be. She thought back over their strange relationship—a mixture of pity, fear, and care. His was a brilliant mind warped by his terrible childhood and the ensuing decades of solitude. He had done the best he could, and she had done as little as possible to help him. "I should have borne my responsibilities better," she told herself.
It was late afternoon, and Erik had come to sit with her. In an hour or two, Meg would be home, and she would fill their rooms with talk. This time was silent, like that dreadful time before, except that he did not hold her hand. She smiled at the thought. He would likely jump away from her if she reached for him. His poor wounded heart.
"Erik," she said, and cleared her throat. When he turned to her, she noted how thin he was, and how much smaller he looked in his own light-brown hair and without his flamboyant clothing. Still, the mask was unsettling, even after so many years. Yet she was always surprised that his fierce grey eye could be so much more compelling than all that white leather.
"Yes?" he said wryly, and Mme. Giry realized that she had been staring. She cleared her throat again. Having started, she did not know how to go on.
"I owe you an apology," she said, finally, and that sculpted eyebrow rose. She had always thought it a great tragedy that a man so disfigured should be so very handsome on the other side. No wonder he raged so against God.
For all that Christine Daae had driven him to murderous haste, she knew him to be a patient man. He was now, as she composed her thoughts. Finally, the words spilled out of her, how she had done him wrong to remain to silent, to not teach him better about people, that she had left him so often alone. The more she talked, the more astonished he looked, until finally he nearly shouted, "Antoinette!" He had not called her by her Christian name in a decade. She clapped her mouth shut.
"Surely you are not trying to take responsibility for this … disaster … upon yourself." She realized that she had been doing just that. "You cannot. I alone am to blame." His argument was very persuasive, as he talked of his selfishness and his madness. He had seemed mad, by the end. Still.
"Erik, no. I am as much to blame as you." He rejected this outright, and she protested. By the time Meg returned, they were still railing at one another, but good-naturedly, and Meg thought that they both looked more like living people than they had since the fire.
She held out to them a letter. "It's from Christine," she said.