Alexander closed his eyes and saw his wife Isabella again—laughing in that garden the week before she died in childbirth, pressing his hand to her belly so he could feel Lucas kick. Isabella, who never woke up after the emergency C-section. “Unexpected hemorrhage,” they’d told him. “Nothing anyone could have done.”
“One hour,” he heard himself say.
Twenty minutes later he watched from the window as the little red-haired girl tore across the lawn, launched herself at Lucas’s chair, and without a trace of fear said something that made his son throw his head back and laugh—really laugh—for the first time in months.
They disappeared behind the overgrown yew hedge that shielded the forgotten corner by the back wall. Alexander was about to turn away when Lily dropped to her knees in the mud and started digging like a terrier after a bone.
Lucas leaned forward, curious. Lily pulled something free, held it up to the light, and both children went very still.
Alexander’s skin prickled. He was moving before he realized it—down the grand staircase, across the terrace, boots slipping on wet leaves. By the time he reached them, Lily was holding out a filthy silver locket on a broken chain.