Chapter 10
By the time Nora and I reached Ryan’s house, Arthur’s version of events had arrived before us.
Aunt Beth stood by the kitchen counter with a mug cooling between her hands. Melissa sat on the couch with June asleep against her shoulder, and my daughter, Sophie, was coloring at the coffee table. Ryan’s old friend Grant had come to check on them. He was still standing by the front door when we walked in.
His eyes moved from me to Nora, then stopped.
“I didn’t know you were bringing her here,” he said.
Ryan came in from the kitchen. “She’s family.”
Grant’s mouth tightened, uncertain rather than cruel. “Arthur said Claire was having a rough time. That she’d gotten fixated on this story and Nora was encouraging it.”
The room went so quiet I could hear the soft squeak of Sophie’s crayon.
“He said I was unstable?” I asked.
“He said you’d just had a difficult delivery and people should be careful about feeding into something you might regret.” Grant looked uncomfortable now, but he kept going. “And that Nora had appeared out of nowhere, making claims while everyone was grieving.”
Nora’s shoulders drew inward. The old instinct to make herself smaller seemed to take hold of her before she could stop it.
Ryan stepped between her and Grant.
“Arthur told you that?”
“He was worried about you.”
“No,” Ryan said. “He was worried we’d hear what he did.”
Grant glanced at Aunt Beth, as if hoping she might rescue him from the conversation. She set down her mug.
“Ryan, we all want to know what’s true,” she said carefully.
“Then look at what’s in front of you,” he replied. “Nora’s letters. The photograph of Mom holding her. The note in Dad’s papers. Arthur’s handwriting telling people to return her mail unopened.”
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. Every sentence landed in the room like a door being shut against Arthur’s story.
Grant shifted his weight. “He said the letter Claire got was from Nora.”
“Arthur wrote it,” Melissa said. She kept one hand over June’s back, making slow circles. “He used the same words in a message to Ryan.”
Grant looked at Nora again. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask,” Ryan said.
I saw the hurt flicker over Grant’s face. Ryan had known him since they were boys. There were years of ball games and bonfires and old jokes between them, but none of those years made his silence harmless.
Grant lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Nora nodded once, not accepting or refusing the apology. “You believed him.”
“I believed someone I trusted,” Grant said.
“So did we,” Ryan answered.
His gaze moved to Nora. He didn’t ask her to forgive him. He didn’t reach for her. He simply stayed where he was, between her and the story Arthur had put in the room.
Nora stared at the floorboards. “You shouldn’t have to choose sides because of me.”
“I’m not choosing against my family,” Ryan said. “I’m standing with it.”
For the first time since we’d entered, Grant looked as if he understood that the argument wasn’t about a rumor anymore. It was about who got to name a family—and who had been kept outside it.
He apologized again, more quietly, then let himself out. The front door clicked shut behind him.
Nobody spoke for a moment. June made a small, sleepy sound against Melissa’s chest. Sophie colored a yellow roof onto the house in front of her, pressing hard enough to wrinkle the paper.
Aunt Beth came to Nora and stopped a few feet away.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have asked you myself.”
Nora gave her a cautious look. “You can ask me now.”
Aunt Beth’s eyes filled. She nodded, but the questions didn’t come. Maybe she knew that one conversation wouldn’t make up for all the ones Nora had been denied.
I understood that. So did Nora.
When the others moved toward the kitchen, Nora stayed by the front window, watching Grant’s car pull away. Ryan went to check on June. Melissa followed him, and Aunt Beth busied herself with the kettle.
Nora turned to me. “If I leave, Arthur loses one reason to keep doing this.”
“He’ll find another.”
“Maybe. But your family was whole before I showed up.”
I felt the words like a hand against an old bruise. “You didn’t break it.”
“I don’t know what I am to you yet,” she said. “I know what I was to them. A secret. A mistake they could pretend had died.”
I took the bundle of returned letters from my bag. They were Nora’s, every one of them, their creased envelopes and faded postmarks familiar now. I laid them on the table between us—not as proof to make her defend herself again, but as the years she’d carried alone.
“You don’t have to decide what you are to all of us today,” I said. “But don’t let Arthur decide whether you get to stay.”
Nora looked down at the bundle. Her fingers hovered above the top envelope, then withdrew.
“I’m afraid if I stay, he’ll make Ryan pay for it.”
“He already tried.”
“That doesn’t mean it won’t work.”
“No,” I said. “It means we have to choose what we do when he tries.”
She looked at me then, searching my face for the easy promise that none of us could honestly give. I had none to offer. Only a chair beside me, and room at the table.
“I want you to stay,” I said. “Not because I need another piece of evidence. Because you’re my sister.”
Nora’s eyes shone, but she didn’t cry. She picked up the letters and held them against her chest.
“I can stay tonight,” she said. “I can’t promise what comes after.”
“Tonight is enough.”
Ryan returned, empty-handed. He had put June back in her crib. His eyes met Nora’s, and he gave her a small nod—not an apology he expected her to answer, just an acknowledgment that he was still there.
Then my phone vibrated.
Arthur’s name filled the screen. The message was short.
The cottage will be cleared tonight. Stay away. What’s left there is none of your business.
A chill traveled beneath my skin. The deadline he’d given us had been tomorrow evening. He’d moved it up without explanation.
Ryan read the message over my shoulder. “He wants us to panic.”
“Or he wants us gone,” Melissa said from the hallway.
The phone rang before I could answer. An unfamiliar number flashed on the screen.
I picked up.
“Claire?” a woman asked, her voice rushed and thin. “It’s Ruth Haskell. I live across from your family’s cottage.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can see smoke rising from the cottage,” Ruth said. “And Arthur’s truck is outside.”
May you like
Behind me, Ryan said my name. Nora’s hand closed around the letters.
The smoke was still rising.
