Chapter 105
Chapter 105: The Solitary Rest
In the autumn of 2078, Claire took a solitary weekend trip back to the old house in Virginia. The property was quiet, the leaves falling in golden sheets across the wide lawn. She had left the gates wide open, allowing the cool mountain breeze to sweep through the rooms.
She walked through the house, looking at the photos on the walls. There was me, sitting at my corporate desk; Anna, holding her silver shovel at the Hudson groundbreaking; Carter, laughing in his Chicago gallery; and young Claire, standing under the Tiffany dome.
Four generations of a family that had been fractured by greed, but entirely reconstructed by courage.
She walked out to the edge of the property where the old stone wall met the woods—the exact spot where I had dropped Janet’s silver brooch into the crevice twenty years ago. She knelt, clearing the fallen leaves away from the stone.
May you like
Deep within the crack, the silver brooch was still there, now tarnished completely black by decades of earth, rain, and frost. It looked like a dead coal, stripped entirely of its false brilliance and its vanity.
Claire didn't pull it out. She took a handful of rich, dark Virginia soil and packed it tightly into the crevice, burying the last physical relic of Janet’s pride forever. "Stay in the dark, Janet," she whispered. "The light belongs to the girls now."
