Not fear.
Not anger.
Concern.
And that frightened her more than anything.
“Your mother.”
The words echoed through the hospital room.
Lena stared at Vincent, waiting for him to explain.
Waiting for him to smile and say he meant something else.
But he didn’t.
He simply stood there, holding the weight of a truth that had been hidden for almost three decades.
“My mother is dead,” Lena whispered.
The sentence came automatically.
It was something she had believed for years.
Something she had repeated so many times that it had become a fact carved into her heart.
Vincent looked down.
“No.”
Lena felt the air disappear from the room.
“No?”
He shook his head slowly.
“She isn’t dead.”
The photograph slipped slightly in Lena’s fingers.
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“How could you know?”
Because for the first time, Vincent looked like a man who had been waiting for this moment and had been afraid of it at the same time.
