Chapter 16
Evelyn brought us one last box a week later.
Camille’s things.
Nothing valuable.
A blue scarf.
A recipe card for blueberry bread.
Three buttons.
A child’s drawing Mariana had made at the north cottage without knowing the woman beside her was her mother.
The drawing showed two stick figures.
One tall.
One small.
Above them, in a child’s uneven handwriting:
MARI + MILLIE.
Mariana stared at it for a long time.
“I called her Millie.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Camille told you it was her nickname.”
Mariana laughed while crying.
“She gave me part of the truth.”
“Yes.”
“That must have hurt.”
Evelyn’s face softened.
“Every time.”
We baked the blueberry bread that evening.
Badly.
Renata added too much sugar. I burned the first loaf because someone called from downstairs and I forgot the oven. Mariana laughed hard enough to sit on the kitchen counter.
I had not heard that kind of laughter from her yet.
Not cautious.
Not permission-seeking.
Free.
Later she asked whether she should change her surname.
I told her no.
She looked surprised.
“You don’t want me to be Mariana Vance?”
“I want you to be whatever name feels like yours.”
She touched the sapphire pendant.
“Sterling doesn’t.”
Fair.
“What about Bennett?”
“Why Bennett?”
She smiled.
“Evelyn’s mother’s surname was Bennett. She said Mom once considered using it for us if they escaped.”
I nodded.
“Then think about it.”
No ceremony.
No bloodline demand.
Choice.
The one thing everyone else had denied her.
Before leaving the kitchen, she stopped beside me.
“Uncle Alexander.”
I looked at her.
First time.
She seemed unsure whether she had gone too far.
I smiled.
“Yes?”
Nothing more.
She nodded and left.
That one word stayed with me longer than any title I had heard in the organization.
Boss.
Don.
Head of the Vance family.
None of them carried the same weight.
May you like
Because those titles came from power.
Uncle came from a woman who had every reason to distrust families and had chosen, carefully, to try one again.
