The question nearly undid Estelle.
What she needed. Not what Margaret believed she deserved. Not what she wanted. What Estelle needed.
“I need you to accept this as truth,” Estelle said. “Not as madness. Not as a story. As truth.” Her voice steadied as she went on. “And I need you to understand that loving Adara is not enough if that love comes with fear and control. She cannot grow up under that.”
Margaret lowered her head. “No.”
“If you are going to be part of her life,” Estelle said, “then you have to protect her secret as fiercely as I have. No questions asked. No investigators. No lawyers. No pressure. No one else brought into this. Ever.”
Margaret sat very still.
Then, slowly, she lifted her face again.
She pushed herself to her feet. She looked older than she had in the café. Smaller somehow. But clearer too.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “Not a word. I swear it.”
Estelle searched her face. Looking for the truth.
“I believe you,” Estelle said.
And to her surprise, she meant that too. After all that had happened, it seemed impossible. But she did.
Margaret let out a breath that sounded almost like pain. “Will you let me see her?”
Estelle closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. “Yes,” she said. “If you remember what matters most.”
Margaret nodded. “Her safety.”
“Her safety,” Estelle agreed.
Neither of them moved for a moment. The clearing felt strange now, not lighter exactly, but emptied of something hard and relentless that had lived between them too long.
At last, Margaret stepped back. “I should go.”
Estelle nodded.
Margaret hesitated, then said, “I am sorry.”
The words were plain. Not enough to erase the pain. Not enough to mend everything they had broken between them.
But they were real.
“I know,” Estelle said.
Margaret gave one last unsteady nod, then turned and made her way back down the path without looking behind her.
Estelle stood where she was until the sound of Margaret’s footsteps disappeared completely.
Only then did her knees threaten to give way.
Her dragon let out a shaky breath.We did it.
Estelle put a hand against the rough bark of the nearest tree and bowed her head.
Yes,she thought.We did.
For the sake of a little girl and the man she loved, she had revealed her true self to Margaret.
