Chương 6
“She left instructions.”
Ethan stopped.
“What instructions?”
Natalie looked nervous again.
“She told me not to give you anything until Sophie was ready.”
“Sophie is seven.”
“She knew that.”
“Then why put that responsibility on you?”
Natalie’s eyes filled slightly.
“I don’t know.”
That was the first answer from her that sounded real.
Ethan studied her.
The woman standing in front of him was not a simple villain.
That would have been easier.
She was someone who had crossed lines while convincing herself she was protecting something.
And that made her dangerous in a different way.
“What else did you take from the apartment?”
Natalie’s face changed.
“Nothing.”
He waited.
She looked away.
“Nothing important.”
The phrase bothered him.
Because people rarely described something as unimportant unless they knew exactly what it was.
“What did you take?”
Natalie did not respond.
Ethan reached for his phone.
“I’m calling the police.”
Her head lifted.
“No.”
The reaction was immediate.
He watched her carefully.
“Why not?”
“Because that will destroy everything.”
“What everything?”
“The family.”
Ethan looked toward the door.
“Sophie’s family was almost destroyed upstairs.”
Natalie closed her eyes.
“I know.”
Her voice was barely audible.
“I know.”
For the first time, Ethan saw something that looked like shame.
Not enough.
Not yet.
But something.
He lowered the phone.
“Tell me.”
Natalie sat down again.
“I took a notebook.”
“What notebook?”
“Claire’s.”
“Why?”
Natalie stared at the floor.
“Because my name was in it.”
Ethan felt his stomach tighten.
“What did it say?”
“I don’t know.”
He frowned.
“You took a notebook without reading it?”
“I read some of it.”
The admission came quietly.
“What did you see?”
Natalie swallowed.
“She wrote about being afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Me.”
The room became silent.
Ethan did not know what to say.
Natalie looked ashamed.
“She didn’t say I hurt her.”
“That’s not the same as being safe.”
“I know.”
“She wrote that she was afraid of you?”
Natalie shook her head.
“She wrote that she was afraid of what I might become.”
The distinction mattered.
And somehow it was worse.
Ethan looked at the broken pieces of the music box still sitting on the office table.
A small object had started a chain of events nobody could stop.
He thought about Sophie asking if he could fix it.
He thought about how often adults promised children things they could not repair.
Maybe fixing something did not always mean returning it to the way it was.
Maybe sometimes it meant admitting it was broken.
“What did Claire know about you?” Ethan asked.
Natalie wiped her face quickly.
“She knew I was jealous.”
“That’s all?”
“She knew I hated feeling invisible.”
Ethan said nothing.
“She knew I wanted to matter.”
Her voice became smaller.
“She knew I loved Sophie.”
Ethan looked at her.
“And she knew love doesn’t automatically make someone safe.”
Natalie looked up.
The sentence hurt because it was exactly what she feared.
A knock came at the door.
They both turned.
Mrs. Harper opened it slightly.
“Ethan.”
He walked over.
“What is it?”
“Sophie wants you.”
He glanced behind him.
“Is she okay?”
Mrs. Harper nodded.
“She’s sitting in the library.”
A pause.
“She asked if Natalie was going to leave.”
Ethan closed his eyes briefly.
He hated that his daughter was already learning to measure whether adults stayed or disappeared.
“I’ll talk to her.”
Mrs. Harper nodded.
Before leaving, she looked at Natalie.
There was disappointment in her expression.
Not hatred.
That almost made it worse.
Everyone in the house had known Claire.
Everyone had their own memory of her.
Everyone carried a version of the woman they lost.
Natalie was the only person who had tried to stand in the empty space Claire left behind.
And now everyone could see she had filled it with the wrong things.
Ethan walked into the library.
Sophie sat curled in the corner of a large chair with a blanket around her shoulders.
The broken piece of the music box rested beside her.
He sat down.
“Hey.”
“Are we going home?”
“Soon.”
She looked at him.
“Did Natalie lie?”
Ethan paused.
Children deserved truth.
But truth needed care.
“I think Natalie was scared and made choices she shouldn’t have.”
Sophie considered that.
“Mom wasn’t scared like that.”
“No.”
Ethan smiled sadly.
“Your mom was scared of plenty of things.”
Sophie looked surprised.
“Like what?”
He thought for a moment.
“She hated being late.”
A small smile appeared.
“She did.”
“She also hated when people left cabinet doors open.”
Sophie smiled more.
“She always closed them.”
“I know.”
For a few seconds, they sat quietly.
The mansion continued around them.
People cleaned glasses.
Workers carried flowers.
Guests whispered.
Life kept moving even when a person wished it would stop.
Sophie touched the broken piece.
“Can we get the letter fixed?”
Ethan looked at it.
“The letter?”
“The music box.”
He nodded.
“We can try.”
She accepted that answer.
Then she leaned against him.
Ethan held her carefully.
In the next room, Natalie stood alone beside the wedding dress she had chosen months earlier.
The ceremony was no longer the most important thing waiting for her.
The truth was.
And for the first time, she understood that the only way forward was not protecting herself from what Claire left behind.
It was finding the courage to help Ethan uncover it.
The drive to Claire’s old apartment took twenty minutes, but Ethan felt as if he had been traveling through years he had somehow missed.
Sophie sat in the back seat with Mrs. Harper beside her, holding the repaired envelope from the music box inside a small plastic folder.
The letter was too delicate to carry loose.
Ethan had placed it there himself.
He did not trust his own hands after seeing them shake while reading Claire’s words.
Natalie sat in the passenger seat.
May you like
She had removed her wedding veil before leaving the mansion.
Without it, she looked less like a bride and more like someone who had finally run out of places to hide.
