“I keep trying to decide what I’ll say,” she murmured.
“To Dad?”
“To whoever steps out of the shadows pretending to be Dad.”
I looked at the passing trees.
“What do you want to say?”
She laughed softly, without amusement. “I want to say I hate him. I want to say I missed him. I want to ask if he knew Mom died with his sweater folded under her pillow.”
I closed my eyes.
“I didn’t know that.”
“She never stopped loving him,” Clara said. “Even after everything.”
The observatory appeared at the top of the hill, smaller than memory but still standing. Its white dome had faded to a weathered gray. Ivy climbed one wall. The old iron fence leaned inward as if tired from holding its shape.
Daniel parked near the entrance.
He got out first, scanning the area. Priya sat in his passenger seat with a laptop open and a phone in hand.
