Mara said she would come for it herself.
They met at Caroline’s townhouse on an afternoon when the windows were open to a warm breeze.
Mara stood in the doorway without crossing the threshold until Caroline stepped aside.
The two women sat in a small living room furnished with borrowed chairs and an old bookshelf.
Caroline handed over the book without asking for anything in return.
Mara read the dedication and touched the pressed flower.
She remembered bringing that flower home from a school trip and insisting her mother save it forever.
Caroline said she had never known the book existed.
Richard had kept it inside a locked cabinet among documents he rarely discussed.
Mara asked whether Caroline had ever tried to open the cabinet.
“I believed a locked drawer meant he needed privacy,” Caroline replied.
“Sometimes it did,” Mara said.
“Other times it meant he didn’t want anybody asking what was inside.”
Caroline nodded without defending him.
For the first time, Mara asked about Caroline’s life beyond the marriage.
Caroline described her years teaching music, the school choir she once directed, and the neighborhood concerts she organized before Richard convinced her to stop.
Mara said Evelyn had loved music but could not carry a tune.
The two women laughed at the contrast.
They began speaking about ordinary interests rather than only Richard’s omissions.
When Mara left, she carried the book against her chest and promised to return a borrowed scarf.
Caroline called me that evening and said she had not expected such a small object to make so much room in her life.
I understood because my father’s bicycle bell occupied a similar place on my desk.
Neither object could restore what was lost.
Both made it possible to remember the past without allowing one man’s version of it to be the only version.
CHAPTER 33: The Supervisor’s Notes
Jessica received a packet from her attorney containing the company’s final findings about Richard’s supervision practices.
The review concluded that Richard had violated internal conflict-of-interest policies by failing to disclose a personal relationship with a direct subordinate.
It did not make legal conclusions about Alder House or Mara.
Jessica asked me whether I wanted a copy of the findings for the divorce process.
I told her the mediator could decide which documents were relevant.
She thanked me for not treating the company’s findings as permission to humiliate her.
I said I was trying to behave in a way I would recognize later.
