Chapter 5
Tilda found Father by accident.
Almost.
She had been sent to the west garden house to collect old table linens for the memorial reception.
The irony was ugly enough without help.
She heard knocking above.
At first she thought pipes.
Then a voice.
Weak.
“Hello?”
She followed it.
Found the locked upstairs door.
Calista had the key.
Tilda did not.
So she used a fireplace poker to force the old latch.
Not dramatic.
Just stubborn.
Father sat inside in his wheelchair.
He told her his name.
She thought he was confused.
Then she saw his face.
The same face displayed on every memorial invitation photo in the house.
“What did you do?”
Tilda swallowed.
“I asked if he wanted to leave.”
Good.
Not called Calista.
Not called me.
Asked him.
Father said yes.
Tilda wheeled him through the garden path directly toward the ballroom.
Why not call me first?
“She took my phone.”
Tilda looked embarrassed.
Calista had caught her downstairs after finding the room empty.
Demanded the phone.
Deleted one photograph Tilda had taken of Father.
Then told her:
“He is sick. He thinks he’s Osbert Wynthrop.”
Tilda nearly believed her.
Until Calista slapped her when she tried to continue toward the ballroom.
That was the mistake.
Fear betrayed Calista faster than evidence.
“If he were an impostor,” Tilda said quietly, “she wouldn’t have been that scared.”
Correct.
So Tilda kept pushing.
Straight into my father’s memorial.
I looked at her.
“You could have lost your job.”
“Yes.”
“Why continue?”
She glanced at Father.
“Because he asked to leave.”
Simple.
No family history.
No revenge.
No blood loyalty.
An old man asked a maid to open a door.
She did.
Father smiled faintly.
“First person in six months who treated my opinion like it mattered.”
That landed.
Calista looked down.
So did I.
Because before his disappearance, I had also begun treating Father like an old man whose decisions should be managed.
He forgot appointments sometimes.
Repeated stories.
I stopped bringing certain problems to him.
Nothing cruel.
Nothing dramatic.
Still.
Age had begun shrinking his authority in my mind before Calista ever locked a door.
She exploited something already present.
May you like
That did not reduce her guilt.
It increased mine.
