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His mouth finds mine, urgent and sure, kissing me with all the things he’s been trying not to say for a year. My fingers curl into his shoulders, holding on as his lips move over mine again, and again, and again, until my laugh dissolves into a groan.
I let my thoughts fall away and kiss him back with everything I have, suddenly certain that neither of us were ever faking a single second of it.
30
CLOSURE PENDING
LILA
Two weeks later, the house looks so much different.
Movers in dark uniforms weave through the foyer, arms full of crates stamped with bold black letters: ARCHIVE. MUSEUM HOLDINGS. FRAGILE. Tape tears. Wood creaks. Dust drifts in the lines of afternoon sun.
“This way, please,” Evelyn calls. “Those are going to the truck marked Whitmore.”
She wears slacks and a soft blouse. Her hair is pulled back. There is a clipboard in her hand, a pencil tucked behind her ear. She’s in curator mode, and I love it.
If anything good came of Theo and me finding Henry’s stash of antiquities, it was that it gave Evelyn a fun project to occupy her for the next few months.
You know, aside from the being worth over sixteen million dollars part.
Gerry stands beside her, hands on his hips, watching two movers wrestle a full pallet down the front steps.
“If any of those boxes start whispering in Latin, I’m billing hazard pay,” he tells one of them. “I did not sign up for cursed antiques. My union rep would have something to say.”
“You do not have a union rep,” Evelyn says, without looking up. “And you’re also not being paid.”
“Not with that attitude,” he mutters, then catches sight of me and Theo and brightens. “There they are. The famous troublemakers.”
Theo’s hand lands on the small of my back, guiding me into the foyer. The smell of coffee and something cinnamon drifts from the morning room. Brunch, Evelyn called it in the text she sent me a few days ago. As if inviting us back for mimosas and scones while the estate is being dismantled around us was a normal follow-up to our last visit.
“Thank you for coming,” Evelyn says. She taps the clipboard gently against her leg. “I know this is strange timing.”
“You did promise food though,” Theo grins.
That earns the smallest smile from her. “That, I did.”
We drift into the morning room, where the table has been cleared just enough to function. Fruit and pastries sit beside estate folders and packing manifests, the remains of an ambitious brunch plan abandoned mid-effort.
I take a mug of coffee mostly so I have something to hold.
Evelyn pours her own cup and takes the seat across from me.
“I thought I would feel differently,” she says. “Seeing it all go.”
She gestures vaguely at the folders, the manifests, the careful order she’s imposed on decades of accumulation. She talks about logistics. About responsibility. About how objects like these carry sad stories whether anyone wants to admit they do or not. About how Henry believed in preservation for preservation’s sake, while she’s come to believe that usefulness matters more.
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about legacy,” she continues, smoothing a hand over the table as if it might argue with her. “Not something you engrave onto plaques or hide in vaults, but something that actually shows up where it’s needed.”
She glances at me then, measuring. I get the sense this conversation has been rehearsed, not for effect, but because it mattered enough to get right.
“And I kept coming back to the same question,” she says. “If you have the means to help, and you don’t, what exactly are you doing with your life?”
She pauses long enough that the silence is starting to feel uncomfortable.
“Lila.”
I straighten without meaning to.
