還らぬものの還ること

She was surprised at how serene she felt, and just a little sad. Was it disappointment? She had hardly expected to be forgiven. What she felt was more like homesickness, though there was no source for it, no home. But she was sad to leave her sister. It was her sister she missed—or more precisely, it was her sister with Robbie. Their love. Neither Briony nor the war had destroyed it. This was what soothed her as she sank deeper under the city. How Cecilia had drawn him to her with her eyes. That tenderness in her voice when she called him back from his memories, from Dunkirk, or from the roads that led to it. She used to speak like that to her sometimes, when Cecilia was sixteen and she was a child of six and things went impossibly wrong. Or in the night, when Cecilia came to rescue her from a nightmare and take her into her own bed. Those were the words she used. Come back. It was only a bad dream. Briony, come back. How easily this unthinking family love was forgotten. She was gliding down now, through the soupy brown light, almost to the bottom.（Ian Mcewan, Atonement)