I never learned exactly what he said.
But when Douglas returned home after Thanksgiving, he told me his father had warned him that you had already chosen another life.
Both families lied to both of you.
I am sorry, Hannah.
I folded the pages carefully, though my fingers had begun to tremble.
A small note was attached to the back.
The cottage key is in the blue sewing tin.
I found the tin in the hall cupboard beneath a stack of tablecloths. The key was wrapped in tissue paper, along with a slip of paper bearing an address beside the lake.
My mother’s final line was written beneath it.
Do not go upstairs alone.
I stared at those words until they lost their shape.
Then I thought of Lucas’s voice the night before.
*My grandmother wrote that I was not to let you go upstairs alone.*
The two warnings had been written decades apart by two women who had never trusted each other enough to speak openly, yet had somehow agreed on the same instruction.
