Chapter 16
Grace stopped wearing the housekeeping uniform.
Not because I fired her.
Because I offered her a choice.
“You can stay here without working.”
She stared at me.
“That sounds strange.”
“It feels strange saying it.”
She almost smiled.
Maya climbed onto the antique sofa beside us with Bear under one arm.
The same sofa Diana had pulled her from.
Grace noticed.
So did I.
Maya bounced once.
“Can I sit?”
I looked at her.
“This is your house too if you want it to be.”
Grace’s face changed.
I corrected myself.
“Not because Marcus saved me.”
That mattered.
Grace waited.
“Because you choose whether you stay.”
She looked down.
For years, housing had been tied to obedience.
Work.
Gratitude.
Silence.
Choice sounded almost suspicious.
“What if I want my own place?”
“Then you get one.”
“What if I still want to work?”
“Then you decide where.”
She laughed softly.
“You’re bad at making this dramatic.”
“I’m learning.”
Maya held Bear toward me.
“Fix star?”
The patch had loosened from being opened.
I took the toy.
My hands were terrible with thread.
Grace watched me try twice before taking pity.
“Give me that.”
She sat beside me and stitched the blue star closed.
Not hiding anything now.
The token had been removed and kept in my private study.
The patch remained because it belonged to Bear.
Maya watched closely.
“Grandpa star.”
Grace nodded.
“Yes.”
I looked at the crooked stitches.
Marcus’s old work.
Grace’s new ones.
Two generations holding the same patch together.
Later, Rafe asked what to do with the fallen nutcrackers.
“Repair them.”
He frowned.
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
The train display too.
Christmas had become the night the old lies finally broke open.
I did not want the house pretending it never happened.
When the ballroom was restored, I moved one thing.
The antique sofa.
Instead of placing it against the wall beneath the formal portraits, I put it near the center of the Christmas room.
Grace noticed.
“Why there?”
I shrugged.
“Better view.”
She knew I was lying.
I knew she knew.
May you like
Neither of us said anything.
Sometimes symbolism can survive without explanation.
