Chapter 9

The decision was to tell Bea the truth.

Not the whole truth-she was six, and some truths were too heavy for a child to carry. But the truth she needed. The truth she deserved.

I sat her down in the garden, on the bench under the sunflowers. Priscilla sat beside me. Bea sat across from us, her stuffed rabbit in her lap, her eyes serious.

"Your mommy-your first mommy-was very sick," I said. "She had something called schizophrenia. It made her see things that weren't there and believe things that weren't true. She loved you, but her love was mixed up with her sickness. And sometimes, because of her sickness, she did things that hurt people."

Bea nodded slowly. "Like locking me in the dumbwaiter?"

I glanced at Priscilla. She had told Bea more than I had realized.

"Not exactly," I said. "But yes. Like that."

"Is she coming back?"

"No. She's in a place where doctors can help her. She has to stay there for a long time."

"Forever?"

"Maybe forever."

Bea was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "I don't want to see her."

I felt the weight of that in my chest-the weight of a six-year-old making a decision no child should have to make.

"You don't have to," I said. "Not ever. That's your choice."

"And Priscilla isn't mad at me?"

Priscilla leaned forward. "I'm not mad at you, Bea. I was never mad at you. I was scared. I was trying to keep you safe, and I made some mistakes, and I'm sorry."

"Are you going to leave?"

"No. I'm staying. As long as you want me."

Bea looked at Priscilla for a long moment. Then she got up and walked over and climbed into her lap. Priscilla wrapped her arms around her, and I saw the tears in her eyes, and I felt my own eyes sting.

"I want you to stay," Bea said.

"Okay," Priscilla whispered. "I'll stay."

We sat in the garden until the sun went down. The sunflowers were taller than Bea now, their faces tilted toward the last light. The river murmured in the distance, and the inn stood behind us, old and solid and full of secrets. But the secrets were out now. The walls were sealed. The voices were silent.

We went inside.

That night, I lay awake for a long time, thinking about the dumbwaiter. Thinking about the lullaby. Thinking about the woman I had loved and lost and found and lost again. I thought about the night I had pried open the panel, the plaster dust, the three taps, the humming. I thought about the moment I had heard Cora's voice and felt my heart break and remake itself in the same instant.

I thought about the CTA: Who is truly behind the wall, and whether Miles can save Bea from the woman he mourned.

Cora was behind the wall. And I had saved Bea-not by killing Cora, not by locking her away, but by seeing her clearly. By refusing to let my grief blind me. By choosing, every day, to protect my daughter over my own need for forgiveness.

It wasn't a heroic story. It was a messy story. A story with no clean endings, no easy answers, no villains who were purely evil or heroes who were purely good. It was a story about a family that had been broken and was slowly healing, one small choice at a time.

I rolled over and looked at Priscilla. She was asleep, her face peaceful, her hand resting on the pillow between us. I took her hand and held it.

The river ran past the inn, dark and silent. The sunflowers nodded in the dark. And somewhere, in a locked room in a facility far away, Cora Holloway dreamed of a daughter she would never hold again.

I closed my eyes and slept.