Chapter 12 - Claire Finds Her Mother Alive
The cottage sat above the Maine coast.
Claire remembered it smaller.
She had been thirteen the last time she visited.
Adrian stayed back with investigators.
Claire approached the door alone.
She knocked.
Nothing.
Then footsteps.
The door opened.
Evelyn Morgan stood there.
Older.
Thinner.
Gray in her hair.
A scar along her jaw.
Alive.
Claire forgot every speech she had imagined.
She simply stared.
Evelyn whispered:
“Baby.”
Claire slapped her.
The sound shocked both of them.
Then Claire began crying.
Evelyn did too.
“I’m sorry.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I know.”
“I needed you.”
Evelyn’s face collapsed.
“I know.”
Claire hit her chest once with both hands.
Not hard.
Just grief looking for somewhere to go.
Then Evelyn wrapped her arms around her.
Claire resisted for one second.
Then ten missing years broke open.
She held her mother.
They cried in the doorway until neither could stand properly.
Later, inside the cottage, Evelyn explained.
She had watched Claire from a distance.
Graduation.
Her first airline job.
The apartment she moved into at twenty-one.
Claire stared.
“You were there?”
“Never close.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“I know.”
Evelyn did not ask for forgiveness.
That mattered.
Then Claire asked the question she had been afraid to ask.
“Why did you contact Adrian?”
Evelyn looked toward the sea.
“Because Julian found me.”
“And you trusted Adrian?”
“No.”
Claire frowned.
Evelyn continued.
May you like
“I decided it was time to find out whether he had finally become someone
worth trusting.”
