Three days passed.

Lily stayed.

She slept in Eva's room the first two nights, then moved to the guest room when William set it up properly.

She ate.

She slept long hours.

The color came back to her face slowly, the way light comes back after a long winter — not all at once, but enough that you start to believe it will stay.

Eva treated her aunt with a careful, instinctive tenderness.

She brought her tea without being asked.

She knocked before entering.

She sat beside her on the couch in the evenings and showed her drawings without demanding a response, just laying them out on the cushion between them like small offerings.

On the third morning, Sandra came to the door.

William saw her through the front window before she knocked.

She was alone.

She was wearing the gray coat she kept for important occasions.

Her hair was done.

She looked like herself — the version of herself she presented to the world when she needed something.

He opened the door before she could knock.

She looked at him.

Then past him, into the house.

"I'd like to see Eva," she said.

"Eva is at school."

A pause.

"I didn't know you'd taken her today."

"Life continues," he said.

She looked back at him.

"Can I come in?"

"No."

Her chin moved slightly.

"William.

I know how this looks.

I know what Martin has filed.

I'm not here to fight.

I just want to talk."

"Your lawyer told Martin you're not making any statements."

"I'm not here as a legal matter.

I'm here as—" She stopped.

"I'm here as Eva's mother."

"Eva's mother put her in a position where she was afraid to speak.

Where she was sneaking food through a floor grate to keep another person alive because she was more frightened of you than she was of what she was seeing." He kept his voice even.

"That's not something you walk back with a conversation at the door."

Sandra's composure held, but something behind it shifted.

"I made a terrible mistake," she said.

"I know that.

What I did to Lily was wrong.

I panicked and I made it worse and I know that."

"You installed a bolt."

She closed her eyes briefly.

"I know."

"You didn't panic.

You planned."

She opened her eyes.

"I was losing everything.

I could see it happening.

Lily was going to come in here and take you away from me and I—" Her voice caught.

Just slightly.

"I couldn't let that happen."

"So you decided to take sixty-three thousand dollars.

And my grandmother's house.

And open an account in my daughter's name and fill it with money that wasn't yours."

"I was trying to protect myself.

In case you left."

"By stealing from my mother."

"The house was going to sell eventually—"

"At the right price.

To a real buyer.

Not to Daniel's sister at a hundred and seventy thousand below value."

Sandra pressed her lips together.

"Where is Daniel now?" William said.

She looked away.

Down the front path.

At nothing.

"He's not returning my calls," she said.

William looked at her.

He had expected many things from this conversation.

He had not expected to feel sorry for her.

He didn't, exactly.

But he felt something adjacent to it — the particular sadness of watching someone discover that the person they burned everything for has already moved on.

"Gerald Foss is cooperating with the investigation," William said.

"He has documents showing Daniel directed the undervaluation.

Daniel sent me a threatening text from his personal phone three days ago.

His lawyer appeared at the asset hearing and couldn't answer basic questions about the account he supposedly set up for my daughter's benefit." He paused.

"Sandra.

Daniel is not going to protect you."

She said nothing.

"If you cooperate with the investigation, that matters.

Martin can't make you promises, but the detective can speak to the prosecutor.

If you were genuinely pressured by Daniel into some of this—"

"I wasn't pressured," she said quietly.

"I made choices."

"Then own them."

She looked at him for a long moment.

Her eyes were dry.

Whatever she had come here feeling, she had it under control.

"Can I write Eva a letter?" she said.

"Something she can read when she's older, if she wants to."

"Yes," he said.

"Send it to Martin's office.

He'll hold it."

She nodded.

She took one step back.

"I did love you," she said.

"That part was real."

"I know," he said.

He closed the door.

He stood in the hallway for a moment.

Then he went to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

Lily appeared in the doorway in her socks and an oversized sweater.

"I heard the door," she said.

"Sandra."

Lily leaned against the doorframe.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes."

"You don't have to be."

"I know." He got two mugs down from the cabinet.

"She said Daniel isn't returning her calls."

Lily was quiet for a moment.

"He won't.

That's who he is.

He finds the next one."

The kettle began to heat.

William looked out the window at the back garden.

The grass was still winter-pale.

Eva had left her red boots by the back step.

"She asked to write Eva a letter," he said.

"For when she's older."

"Are you going to let her?"

"Yes."

Lily came into the kitchen and sat at the table.

"That's generous."

"It's for Eva.

Not for Sandra."

Lily nodded.

She picked up the salt shaker from the center of the table and turned it in her hands, the way she used to do with small objects when they were children.

A habit she'd never lost.

"William," she said.

"I'm sorry I didn't call you.

When I found all of it.

I should have just called."

"You came.

That's what matters."

"I almost didn't.

I almost talked myself out of it three times on the drive over."

He set a mug in front of her.

"I'm glad you didn't," he said.