Willoughby's Interlude

Barely a minute of held breath. Willoughby’s theme surfaces one last time and his voice rises out of it to make a promise, that no one is leaving, that whatever she wants is hers.

In the moment it plays as pure tenderness, the reassurance Ethel has been begging for since the first track. In hindsight it reads as something closer to a warning, a vow made by the person least able to keep it, offered most freely by the one least able to stay.