Today I wanted every ghost to speak.
Mrs. Delgado opened the door before we reached the steps, and the moment she saw my face, something in her softened. "Mi niña," she whispered, and that was all it took. The whole day finally caught up to me — not as anger, just exhaustion. She held me in the hallway, and for a few seconds I wasn't Claire Sinclair or Claire Kingsley Ashford. I was just somebody's granddaughter, breathing in lavender soap and home.
She looked at Walter over my shoulder. "You waited too long."
"I know, Clara."
"No more waiting."
In the library, photographs of my parents sat on the mantel — my mother in a white linen dress, laughing at something out of frame; my father holding me upside down at five years old, both of us blurred with motion. Walter opened the wall safe behind the painting of our old lake house and pulled out a cream envelope tied with a faded blue ribbon.
