I had walked past her that day while reading an acquisition report.
She had smiled politely.
I had barely nodded.
“Can we see her?” Lucas asked.
“Not yet,” the doctor said. “She needs rest. But she’s stable.”
Stable.
The word should have comforted me.
Instead, it accused me.
I thanked the doctor and turned back toward the waiting area, but my legs felt heavier than they had during any boardroom battle. I lowered myself into a chair between my sons. Lucas climbed into my lap without asking. Owen pressed against my side, still clutching the sleeve of my jacket with both hands.
I could not remember the last time both boys had sat this close to me.
Maybe they had stopped trying.
Maybe I had trained them to expect distance.
For three years after Evelyn died, I told myself I was providing. I built larger portfolios, expanded into new markets, bought the estate she had once admired from a magazine photo because I thought giving our sons beauty might compensate for the absence of their mother.
But marble floors did not kiss scraped knees.
Security gates did not sing lullabies.
A chef could make perfect pancakes, but he could not know that Owen liked them shaped like stars because Evelyn once told him stars were little windows in heaven.
Claire knew.
“How did Claire learn the star song?” I asked.
Lucas looked at Owen.
That small exchange told me they had been keeping secrets.
Not dangerous secrets.
Child secrets.
Treasures.
“She heard us humming it,” Lucas said. “At night.”
Owen nodded. “We couldn’t remember all the words.”
“So she helped you?”
“She said maybe if we remembered together, it wouldn’t feel so far away.”
My chest ached.
“She knew about your mom?”