Chapter 5
The locket had one thing none of us knew about.
A second hinge.
Eira found it.
Of course she did.
Children play with objects adults treat ceremonially.
She pressed the frame and a tiny inner panel opened.
Inside was a folded strip of paper.
Celeste’s handwriting.
One sentence:
If Galen ever loves again, tell Eira nobody new has to make me smaller.
I sat down.
Celeste had been sick when she wrote it.
Ovarian cancer.
Eighteen months from diagnosis to death.
No murder.
No family conspiracy.
Just disease.
She knew I might remarry.
She wanted me to.
We had talked about it once.
I refused.
She laughed at me.
“You’ll become unbearable alone.”
Probably true.
Then she apparently prepared for the exact problem I failed to imagine.
Not a cruel stepmother necessarily.
A child believing new love required old love to shrink.
I gave the note to Eira.
She could not read all of it.
I read it aloud.
She asked:
“Mommy knew Ainsley?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
I smiled sadly.
May you like
“Mommy knew people.”
That was enough.
