Chapter 9
Claire’s parents came after the news broke.
I expected anger.
I deserved it.
Margaret and Thomas Hale arrived with tearful faces and a box of Sophie’s baby photos.
Margaret hugged Sophie first.
Sophie hesitated, then melted into her.
Thomas looked at me.
“We should have come sooner.”
I shook my head.
“I should have called.”
Margaret touched my arm.
“Claire always worried your mother would push us out.”
“She did.”
“And you let her.”
The words hit clean.
“Yes.”
Thomas nodded.
“Good. Start there.”
We sat in the living room, the same room where I had proposed to Vanessa like a fool.
Sophie sat between her grandparents, looking at photos of Claire.
“Mommy had my hair,” she said.
Margaret cried.
“Yes.”
Sophie looked at me.
“Why Grandma Eleanor doesn’t like Mommy Claire?”
I chose truth carefully.
“Because Mommy Claire saw when people were unkind.”
Sophie nodded.
“Like Vanessa.”
“Yes.”
That night, Margaret showed me a letter Claire had written before she died.
Richard,
If I am gone, do not let your mother teach Sophie that love must be earned by obedience.
I could not finish it.
May you like
Claire had known.
And I had failed to listen to a dead woman who knew my family better than I did.
