Chapter 2
The blue thread looked ordinary.
That was what bothered me.
After Grace left the breakfast room, I went upstairs.
Sophie and Caleb were on the rug in Sophie’s bedroom.
Coloring books covered the floor.
Grace sat with them.
Nobody mentioned the terrace.
That was intentional.
Daniel had already arranged for the remaining guests to leave quietly, and the house had settled into the fragile stillness that follows a day nobody knows how to discuss yet.
Caleb’s rabbit lay beside him.
Brown fur worn nearly smooth.
One ear bent.
The tear had been sewn with bright blue thread.
I had seen that rabbit hundreds of times.
I had bought it.
Or at least, I thought I had.
“Caleb?”
He looked up.
“Can Daddy see Mr. Buttons?”
His little hand immediately closed around the rabbit.
“No.”
That was new.
I crouched.
“Okay.”
Grace looked at me.
I did not press.
“Did Mommy give him that?” I asked Sophie instead.
She frowned.
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Daddy.”
I looked at her.
“I did?”
“You brought him after Caleb was born.”
I remembered coming home from the hospital with bags.
Flowers.
Baby blankets.
Toys sent by people trying too hard to impress me.
One stuffed rabbit among dozens could easily have disappeared into memory.
“Do you remember where I got him?”
Sophie thought.
“Mommy’s closet.”
I froze.
“What?”
“You said Mommy bought him before she went to heaven.”
I had said that?
Memory returned slowly.
Three years earlier.
Caleb had been only a few months old when Claire died.
Several weeks after the funeral, I had opened a storage box in our bedroom.
Inside were baby clothes Claire had purchased before Caleb was born.
A wooden rattle.
A blanket.
And a brown rabbit.
I had carried it downstairs.
I had told Sophie that their mother had chosen it.
Then I had forgotten.
“May I look at his ear?” I asked Caleb.
He shook his head.
Grace intervened gently.
“You don’t have to give him away. Daddy just wants to look.”
Caleb studied me.
Then held the rabbit out.
I did not take it.
I leaned closer instead.
The blue stitches were uneven.
Hand sewn.
Not professionally repaired.
“Who fixed him?”
“Sophie.”
I looked at my daughter.
“You did that?”
She nodded.
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“He got caught on my train,” Caleb said.
“That was last Christmas,” Sophie explained. “His ear ripped.”
“What thread did you use?”
She shrugged.
“The blue one.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Mommy’s sewing box.”
My pulse quickened.
Claire had kept sewing supplies in the dressing room attached to our bedroom.
I had not opened them since her death.
“Can you show me?”
Sophie looked confused.
“Why?”
I remembered Grace’s warning.
Children listened when adults discussed them.
They also knew when answers were being hidden.
“Because I found something your mother wrote before she died, and it mentioned blue thread.”
Sophie’s eyes widened.
“Mom wrote you a treasure hunt?”
Despite everything, I smiled.
“Maybe.”
That explanation delighted Caleb.
“Treasure?”
“Possibly.”
Grace gave me a look that said she knew perfectly well I was turning an adult mystery into something safer for them.
I was.
And for once, I felt no shame in that.
We went to Claire’s old dressing room together.
I had kept the room mostly unchanged.
Not as a shrine.
At least that was what I told myself.
Her clothes had eventually been donated.
Her jewelry divided between Sophie and a secure box for Caleb.
But some things remained.
A perfume bottle.
May you like
Two scarves.
Books.
