Page 62

I swallowed.

“Could we come in for a few minutes? I owe you an apology, and there are some things I’d like to say.”

She hesitated.

I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d closed the door.

Then she stepped aside.

“All right. Come in.”

Sienna went into the living room and settled on the green sofa after Goldie invited her to sit. She took her sketchbook out of the small bag she’d brought and opened it on her lap. Goldie asked Sienna to put in her earbuds while the two of us talked privately. Sienna dug them out of her bag, put them in, and turned to her phone.

I followed Goldie toward the kitchen, leaving Sienna occupied with her sketchbook and phone.

Her coffee mug sat in the drying rack beside mine.

I recognized mine from this morning.

It was such a small thing, but seeing it there made me remember standing in this kitchen with Goldie only hours earlier, eating one of her pumpkin muffins and looking forward to seeing her again that afternoon.

She folded the tissue between her fingers.

“I’m listening, Duncan.”

I faced her.

“I accused you of going behind my back when you hadn’t done anything wrong. You told me the truth, and I didn’t believe you. I was wrong, Goldie, and I’m sorry.”

Goldie watched me carefully, then lowered her gaze.

“When you said I’d broken our agreement, it felt like you hadn’t trusted me at all.”

“I understand why you’d feel that way. I wasn’t being fair to you.”

“No, you weren’t.” She looked back up. “And it wasn’t just the accusation. You said I didn’t understand what it was like to be responsible for your daughter. I’ve never pretended to be her parent, Duncan. I was trying to help because I care about her. And because you asked me to.”

Her eyes filled again, although she blinked the tears away.

I wanted to pull her into my arms, but I stayed where I was.

She deserved an apology without having to comfort me through it.

“I found Sienna’s sketchbook when we got home,” I said. “It fell out of her bag, open to a drawing she’d made months ago. I saw enough to realize what she’d been trying to tell me. Then I asked her to show me the rest.”

Goldie glanced toward the living room.

“She has a wonderful imagination.”

“She does. And she’s got a good eye for the work. I recognized some of the same things in her drawings that I remember learning when I was young.”

I rubbed my hand over my beard.

“I’ve spent years keeping that part of my life away from her. When she was little, one of my unfinished creatures frightened her badly. I’d already been struggling with a lot of things after my marriage ended, and I convinced myself that shutting down the workshop and keeping Halloween harmless was the safest way to raise her.”

Goldie listened without interrupting.

“I was wrong about that too. She’s not the little girl who was frightened of my monsters anymore. She wants to make her own. I should’ve been helping her learn instead of telling her she wasn’t ready every time she asked.”