the relief of looking. Her mind supplied excuses with humiliating speed. It could be Jonah. It could be the nurse. It could be an emergency. It could be something important.
She opened the drawer.
There were fourteen notifications.
None from Jonah.
One missed call from her mother.
Mara stared at the name.
The hallway seemed to narrow around her.
For weeks, she had allowed guilt to become another distraction. She thought about calling her mother constantly, which gave the feeling of devotion without the risk of conversation. She worried. She planned. She postponed. She carried tenderness like an unpaid debt.
Now the debt had rung.
Before she could call back, a message appeared from her sister, Nina.
Mara, please call Mum. She asked for you twice tonight.
Mara’s thumb found the number.
The call rang five times.
On the sixth, her mother answered.
“Hello?”
Her voice was thin, papery, but still hers.
“Mum,” Mara said.
There was a pause on the line. A television murmured in the background. Somewhere, perhaps in her mother’s room, a cup touched a saucer.
Then her mother said, “There you are.”
Not where have you been.
Not why didn’t you come.
There you are.
The kindness undid Mara more thoroughly than accusation could have.
She leaned against the hallway wall and covered her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Her mother breathed softly for a moment.
“For what, love?”
“For being absent while pretending I was busy.”
Another pause.
“Ah,” her mother said, and the small sound held more understanding than Mara deserved. “Yes. We all do that in our own costumes.”
Mara laughed through tears.
Her mother asked about the attic. Mara told her about the desk, the papers, the pocket watch. At the mention of Elias, her mother became quiet.
“I remember that watch,” she said.
“Did he really write letters to a thief?”
Her mother gave a weak chuckle. “Your grandfather saw thieves everywhere after the station closed. Not people. Habits. Regrets. Pride. Noise. He used to say most burglars had better manners than a wasted day.”
Mara sat on the stairs.
“Why did no one talk about him much?”
For a long time, her mother did not answer.
When she did, her voice had changed.
“Because talking about Elias meant talking about Elsie.”
Mara frowned.
Elsie was her grandmother. A woman of church hats, old photographs, lemon cake, and a piano stool that creaked. She had died when Mara was eight, leaving behind the smell of lavender soap and the memory of hands moving confidently over keys.
“What about her?”
Her mother’s breathing caught slightly.
“Not tonight,” she said.
“Mum.”
“I am tired, darling. Bring the pages tomorrow. And the watch. There is something tucked with them, unless Nina lost it.”
“A key?”
“No,” her mother whispered. “A ticket.”
Mara looked toward the kitchen where the envelope lay open.
“What ticket?”
But her mother only said, “Platform 4,” and then asked Mara to talk about something ordinary.
So Mara did.
For forty-three minutes, they spoke of soup, attic dust, the neighbor’s cat, old wallpaper, Jonah’s childhood questions, and the time Mara had tried to cut her own fringe before a school photograph. They avoided the largest things at first, then approached them sideways. Her mother admitted she had been frightened. Mara admitted
