In the private sitting room upstairs, away from the noise, Lenora sat on a pale blue sofa beneath a portrait of a woman she now knew was her mother. Diana Harrison looked out from the canvas with intelligent eyes and a half-smile, as if she had been interrupted mid-thought. Lenora stared at her for a long time.
“She looks like you,” Vincent said from the doorway.
Lenora shook her head. “I don’t know how to be her daughter.”
“You already are.”
“I don’t know how to own all this.”
“That can be learned.”
She laughed once, tired and broken around the edges. “Can being okay be learned too?”
Vincent’s expression softened.
“Yes,” he said. “But usually not alone.”
Mr. Wilson appeared behind him, holding a small velvet box.
“I had the house jeweler repair the clasp temporarily,” he said, stepping inside. “The chain will need proper work, but it should hold tonight.”
