“Sabine,” he said gently, “this is Ella. She is your maman’s sister.”
Maman.
My stomach twisted.
Sabine’s eyes widened slightly.
She looked back at me with new focus.
A new kind of curiosity.
She said something again—softer this time. A question.
Étienne hesitated.
Then translated quietly. “She wants to know if you live in America.”
A sob almost broke loose at the normalcy of it.
Yes. I live in America. I order groceries online and complain about traffic and fight with my mother about politics and thought my sister was alone here.
“Yes,” I said carefully. “I live in New York.”
Sabine nodded solemnly, absorbing this as if it were a reasonable piece of information in a very reasonable day.
I reached out without thinking and brushed a strand of hair from her face.
Her skin was warm under my fingers.
Rose had touched this face every day.
I felt like I was trespassing again.
Like I was being allowed into something sacred I hadn’t earned.
“I didn’t know,” I repeated, this time looking at Étienne.
His face had gone pale but composed. There was grief in it. Real grief. The kind that carved permanent lines around a person’s eyes.
“She didn’t want anyone in New York to know,” he said quietly.
The words hit like a slap.
“She didn’t want us to know?” My voice sharpened before I could stop it.
Kane shifted slightly behind me. Not interrupting. Just closer.
Étienne exhaled slowly. “It was complicated.”
Of course, it was.
It was always complicated when someone built two lives.
“What was complicated?” I asked, rising slowly to my feet. My legs felt unsteady but anger was easier to stand on than shock.
He stood, too, Sabine still pressed against him.
“Please,” he said gently. “Come inside.”
