“You were always a deep thinker. Even as a baby, you'd stare at things with such intensity. Like you were trying to understand the secrets of the universe.”
Beth laughed softly. “And now I'm a mother of twins, and the only secret I'm trying to understand is how to get both of them to sleep at the same time.”
“I'm sorry to tell you that secret doesn't exist.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Maggie looked around the room, at the lavender walls and the single glow-in-the-dark star on the ceiling and all the invisible layers of history that clung to every surface. “I wish you could be here. Really here, I mean. Walking through these rooms with us.”
“I know. I wish I could too.” Beth paused, and Maggie couldsee her struggling with something. “But maybe it's okay that I'm not. Maybe some goodbyes are supposed to happen from a distance.”
“What do you mean?”
“I've been thinking about it all morning, watching everyone go through their stuff, finding their memories. And I realized that my goodbye to that house happened already. When I got married. When I built my life here, at the farm, with Gabriel.” She adjusted the baby on her chest, her hand moving in the unconscious rhythm of new motherhood. “That house was my childhood, but it's not who I am anymore. I'm grateful for it. I'll always be grateful. But I don't need to walk through those rooms to know what they meant to me.”
Maggie felt tears prick at her eyes. Her youngest daughter, her baby, sounding so wise, so grown. When had that happened? When had the little girl who wrote poems about springtime become this woman who understood things Maggie was still learning?
“I'm proud of you,” Maggie said. “I don't say that enough. But I'm so proud of the woman you've become.”
“You say it plenty, Mom. You always have.”
“Then I'll say it again. I'm proud of you.”
They sat in silence for a moment, mother and daughter, connected across miles by a screen and by something deeper that no distance could diminish.
“Mom?” Beth said finally. “Don't forget to check the back of my closet. There's a loose floorboard where I used to hide things I didn't want anyone to find.”
“What kind of things?”
“Just things. Notes from friends. A diary. Maybe some questionable poetry.”
“More questionable than the springtime poems?”
“Much more questionable. Burn it if you have to. I trust your judgment.”
Maggie laughed. “I'll take a look.”
She ended the call and crossed to the closet, kneeling down to feel along the floor until she found the loose board. Beneath it, just as Beth had said, was a small collection of treasures: a journal with a sparkly cover, a stack of folded notes, a dried flower pressed between sheets of wax paper, and a photograph of a boy Maggie didn't recognize, his face earnest and young.
She didn't read the journal or unfold the notes. Some secrets belonged to the people who had kept them, even years later. Instead, she placed everything back under the floorboard and pressed it into place.
Some things were meant to stay hidden. Some goodbyes didn't need witnesses.
She stood and brushed off her knees, then walked to the doorway and looked back at the room one more time. Lavender walls. A single star on the ceiling. A window seat where a little girl had once watched the world and dreamed of everything she would become.
“Thank you,” Maggie whispered. “For holding her while she grew.”
Then she turned off the light and went to find the rest of her family.
CHAPTER 24
The door to Daniel's study had remained closed all morning.
Maggie had walked past it a dozen times, finding reasons to be elsewhere, to help with other tasks, to sort through boxes that didn't carry the weight this room carried. But now, as the afternoon light slanted through the hallway windows, she knew she couldn't avoid it any longer.
The study was at the back of the house, a small room that Daniel had claimed as his own the day they moved in. He had called it his sanctuary, the place where he could think and work and be alone. The children had learned early not to disturb their father when he was in his study. The door closed meant do not enter, and that rule had been absolute.
Even now, years after his death, Maggie felt a flutter of hesitation as she reached for the doorknob.
