A coldness spread through him that had nothing to do with the rain.
“Can you take me to her?”
Lily did not answer immediately.
She looked at the grave, then at the photograph in his hand.
Finally, she nodded.
“But you must promise not to shout.”
Lily’s home stood at the edge of town, where the road narrowed and the houses became scattered among pine trees.
They walked for nearly twenty minutes.
Thomas asked questions along the way, but Lily knew little about her mother’s past.
Anna had lived in the house for as long as Lily could remember. She repaired antique clocks for a shop in town and rarely traveled farther than the market.
She had no relatives.
She had no old friends.
She avoided hospitals, train stations, and police officers.
Most nights she slept peacefully, but sometimes she woke screaming about smoke, broken windows, and a man wearing gray gloves.
“Who is your father?” Thomas asked.
Lily kicked a stone along the roadside.
“I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has a father.”
“Mother says mine died before I was born.”
Thomas calculated the years.
Lily looked seven. Rebecca had supposedly died nine years ago.
The realization struck him with a fresh wave of confusion.
If the woman truly was Rebecca, the child might belong to someone else.
Jealousy rose in him before he could stop it. He hated himself for feeling it. Rebecca might be alive, and yet his first thoughts were already tangled with questions of loyalty, betrayal, and the years someone else might have shared with her.
The house appeared beyond a line of wet pine trees.
It was a modest cottage with pale blue walls and a crooked chimney. Wind chimes hung beneath the porch roof, turning silently in the damp air.
Lily stopped at the gate.
“She may be frightened.”
“So am I,” Thomas admitted.
The girl opened the gate.
They crossed the garden and climbed the porch steps.
Before Lily could reach for the handle, the front door opened.
A woman stood inside.
She wore a gray sweater and held a kitchen towel in one hand. Her hair was cut to her shoulders and streaked with silver. A thin scar ran from her left temple to the edge of her eyebrow.
She looked older.
She looked exhausted.
But she had Rebecca’s green eyes.
Thomas forgot how to breathe.
The woman’s face lost all color.
The towel fell from her hand.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
Then she whispered his name.
“Thomas.”
It was not the uncertain voice of a stranger reading a name from a letter.
It was Rebecca’s voice.
It carried the same gentle roughness it had possessed in the mornings, before coffee. It shaped the first syllable the way only she had ever done.
Thomas gripped the porch railing.
“You’re alive.”
The woman pressed one hand against her mouth.
Lily stood between them, watching silently.
“Please come inside,” the woman said.
Thomas did not move.
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“I stood over your coffin.”
“I know.”
“I mourned you for nine years.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I know.”
Thomas’s shock hardened into anger.
“How could you know?”
She looked toward the neighboring houses.
“Please. Not outside.”
Thomas wanted to demand answers immediately. He wanted the whole street to hear. He wanted the sky itself to open and accuse her.
But Lily was still there.
He entered the house.
The living room smelled of tea, old wood, and machine oil.
Dozens of clocks covered the walls. Some were elegant, some cracked, some no larger than a man’s palm. Their ticking overlapped until the room seemed to contain hundreds of tiny footsteps.
Rebecca—or Anna—sat on one end of a faded sofa.
Thomas remained standing.
Lily climbed into an armchair and hugged her knees.
“Start at the beginning,” Thomas said.
The woman folded her hands.
“My name is Rebecca Alder.”
Hearing her say it made the room tilt.
“I remembered that name three years ago,” she continued. “Before then, I only knew pieces. A lake. A red scarf. Lavender. The sound of someone playing the piano badly.”
Thomas stared at her.
“I played badly.”
A faint, wounded smile appeared and disappeared.
“Yes. You did.”
“What happened on the train?”
Rebecca looked at Lily.
“Go to your room, sweetheart.”
“I brought him here.”
“I know, and you did the right thing. But I need to speak with him alone.”
Lily reluctantly left the chair. Before walking upstairs, she handed Thomas the photograph.
“I’m sorry I took it,” she said.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
When the bedroom door closed above them, Rebecca began.
“The last thing I clearly remember before the crash was a man entering my compartment. He wore a dark coat and gray leather gloves.”
Thomas’s anger faltered.
“A man?”
“He asked whether I was Rebecca Alder. I thought he worked for the railway. Then he locked the compartment door.”