The air in the house felt different now—charged. As if the walls themselves were aware that something had been uncovered.
Clara sat at the kitchen table, the stack of letters beside her. Elias poured tea into two mismatched mugs and slid one toward her.
"I think he might've been my mother's father," Clara said, not looking up.
Elias froze, halfway into his seat. "Thomas?"
She nodded slowly. "There's a letter. From 1975. It doesn't say it outright, but… why would he mention her name? Why would he care that Margaret named her daughter after herself?"
Elias leaned forward, voice low. "Do you think your grandmother ever told him?"
"I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe she didn't even tell herself." Clara shook her head. "Gran was a master at silence."
They sat in stillness for a while. The clock ticked faintly. Outside, rain softened into mist.
Then Clara said, "There's someone I need to talk to."
—
Mrs. Langford hadn't aged a day in Clara's memory. Her former babysitter, once her grandmother's closest friend, still wore her silver hair in a tight twist and walked like her spine had been trained by a soldier.
She opened the door before Clara had even knocked. "I saw your car," she said, not unkindly.
"I have some questions," Clara said.
Mrs. Langford sighed, then stepped aside. "Then come in. And don't tiptoe around them."
They sat in the parlor, surrounded by lace doilies and the scent of rosewater.
"I found letters," Clara began. "In the attic. From Thomas."
Mrs. Langford's lips thinned. "So, she did keep them."
"You knew about him?"
A long pause. Then a nod. "Of course I did. Everyone in town did, once. Margaret and Thomas were... undeniable."
Clara's voice trembled. "Do you think—could he have been my mother's father?"
Mrs. Langford looked at her for a long moment, as if weighing the cost of truth. Then she stood and crossed to a cabinet, pulling out an old photo album.
She flipped to a black-and-white picture.
Clara leaned in.
It was her mother—as a child—sitting beside a man she didn't recognize. He was handsome, laughing, with wind-tousled hair and eyes that looked… almost familiar.
Mrs. Langford tapped the photo. "That was taken the summer before your mother was born. Thomas never married. Never had children, far as anyone knows. But he came back that year. Quietly. For one weekend."
Clara stared at the photo, pulse fluttering.
"She never told me," she whispered.
Mrs. Langford's voice softened. "Some loves don't fit into tidy endings, Clara. Some truths don't either. But that doesn't make them less real."
Clara looked up. "Do you think she loved him? Even after all that time?"
"I think," Mrs. Langford said, gently closing the album, "she never stopped."