as an excuse, but as a wound.

For the first time, Mara’s face changed.

Not softened, exactly.

But the hard surface cracked enough for the past to breathe through.

Theo tugged his mother’s sleeve.

“Mama, are you Celia?”

Mara shut her eyes.

Nora saw the answer before she said it.

“Yes,” Mara whispered.

The boy’s small hand tightened in hers.

Nora covered her mouth.

The sound that escaped her was not quite a sob.

It was older than that, rougher, pulled from a place grief had sealed.

Celia looked toward the street again.

“We can’t stand here.”

“Then come somewhere public,” Nora said.

“The station café.

Ten minutes.

No one touches Theo.

No one calls anyone unless you ask.”

Celia looked at her son.

His face was frightened and curious and cold from the rain.

“Ten minutes,” she said.

“One table.

Near the door.”

They sat in the café where commuters shook rain from umbrellas and pretended not to stare.

Celia chose the chair closest to the exit and kept Theo between herself and the wall.

Nora sat opposite them with the cream envelope flat under her palm.

Up close, Nora could see the years that had not existed in the photograph.

The faint scar near Celia’s eyebrow.

The weariness at the corners of her mouth.

The way her eyes kept counting exits.

But it was her daughter.

Older, guarded, alive.

Theo drank warm milk through a straw, watching both women as if he had been given a puzzle too large for his hands.

Nora slid the photograph across the table.

“I went to the memorial printer today,” she said.

“They found this in an old archive box.

It was meant for a tenth anniversary program.

I couldn’t leave it there.”

Celia touched the edge of the picture but did not pick it up.

“I hated that dress,” she said softly.

Nora gave a broken little laugh.

“You said it made you look like a stoplight.”

Celia’s eyes lifted.

For one second, they were back in the bedroom the night before graduation, Celia barefoot on a chair, Nora pinning the hem while Victor complained from downstairs that they were making everyone late.

Then Celia looked away.

“Memory doesn’t prove anything.”

“No.

But this might.”

Nora reached into her bag and took out a small clear sleeve.

Inside lay a crescent moon necklace, tarnished along the chain.

Celia stared.

“That was mine.”

“Victor gave it to me after the accident.

He said it was recovered from the ferry.”

Celia shook her head slowly.

“I lost it before Theo was born.

In the private clinic.”

“What clinic?”

Celia’s face tightened.

“The one Victor sent me to after I told him I was pregnant.

He said it was a quiet place where the family could avoid gossip while you calmed down.”

“I never knew you were pregnant.”

Celia looked at her sharply.

Nora did not look away.

“I swear to you.”

The café noise pressed around them.

Milk steaming.

Cups clicking.

Rain ticking at the windows.

Celia’s hands curled around Theo’s shoulders.

“I called you from there,” she said.

“Every day for a week.

They told me you refused the calls.”

“I never received them.”

“I wrote letters.”

“I never saw them.”

“He brought me one from you.”

Nora went cold.

“What did