I put the cards away.
Outside, gravel crunched. Louder than the mail truck. Wrong sound entirely.
I peeked through the blinds, and my stomach tightened. A black limousine, long and out of place, was rolling to a stop beside my rusting sedan.
“Lily, stay inside a minute, okay?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I wiped my palms on my jeans and stepped onto the sagging porch. The driver opened the back door, and Eleanor stepped out in a soft cream coat, an envelope pressed to her chest.
She smiled like she’d been rehearsing it the whole drive.
“Maya. I hope you’ll forgive me for coming without calling. I’ve been trying to find you for months.”
And just like that, the ordinary morning I thought I knew ended.
Eleanor stepped closer, clutching a cream envelope against her coat. She smelled like the same expensive perfume I remembered from Thursday mornings in her marble foyer.
“I started a foundation in Arthur’s name. I’m inviting everyone who worked for us over the years.” She smiled sadly. “You were harder to find than anyone else. My assistant spent months tracking you down.”
“Arthur always remembered how kind you were to our home. I wanted to invite you in person.”
Lily’s pink bicycle lay tipped over in the grass behind me. I bent to lift it, and the chain of the locket slipped free of my collar and swung against my shirt.
Eleanor stopped speaking mid-sentence.
I straightened slowly. Her face had drained of color.
“This?” I touched it without thinking. “I’ve had it since I was a baby. The social worker who placed me said it was found with me.”
Eleanor stared at me for a long moment before fumbling for her phone.
She scrolled through her photos in silence. Finally, she found what she was looking for and held the screen out to me.
A young woman stood on a garden path, holding a little girl no more than three on her hip. Around the woman’s neck hung a silver locket. It wasn’t just similar. It had the same worn clasp and the same tiny dent beside the hinge.
The yard tilted slightly under me.
“Who is she?”
Eleanor’s voice barely made it past her lips.
