that empty dining room with her hands on her hips, telling me the light through the front windows made the place feel hopeful.
Had we chosen that building?
Or had the building been waiting for her?
Michael ran a hand through his hair. “This is insane. Are you saying Emma’s family owned Daniel’s first restaurant?”
“No,” Samuel said carefully. “We’re saying we need records before anyone says anything definitive.”
Margaret laughed once, low and bitter. “Records. Your father believed records could fix everything. But records do not raise children. Records do not pay hospital bills. Records do not keep a roof over anyone’s head when men make promises and die before they can keep them.”
I stared at her.
There was pain there. Real pain.
For the first time, I saw that my mother had not simply been guarding stolen money or hidden influence. She had been guarding a version
