Atonement

"I love you. I'll wait for you. Come back. Come back to me."

"Dearest Cecilia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume.

I will return. Find you, love you, marry you and live without shame."

"So, my sister and Robbie were never able to have the time together they both so longed for and deserved. Which ever since I've, ever since I've always felt I prevented. But what sense of hope or satisfaction could a reader derive from an ending like that? So in the book, I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out on in life. I'd like to think this isn't weakness or evasion but a final act of kindness.

I gave them their happiness."