Chapter 2

The scratch of the key in the lock felt like the first breath after drowning. My new room—a cramped attic space above a bakery on Rue des Lilas—smelled of flour and old wood. I dropped my single suitcase on the bare mattress and let the silence settle.

*This is mine. No one can take it from me.*

Work at the clinic blurred into a rhythm of bandages and blood pressure cuffs. Thomas caught my eye between patients, a warm question in his gaze. I shook my head, smiling faintly. Not yet. I wasn’t ready to explain the funeral, the whispers, my father’s hand trembling as Marguerite steered him away from the grave.

That evening, I unpacked Mother’s old coat from the bottom of my bag. Something solid thumped against the floorboards. A wooden box, no bigger than a shoebox, its latch rusted shut. I pried it open with a butter knife.

Inside: a thick envelope, yellowed bank statements, and a faded certificate. All in *her* name alone. Margaret Voss. Not Richard. Not the family trust. A separate account with a balance that made my breath stop.

*She had her own money. Her own plans. She was never just… his wife.*

I pressed the documents to my chest, and for the first time since the funeral, tears came—not of grief, but of something fiercer. She’d left me a door out. A way to stand on my own.

But the house. The house was still the piece Marguerite was circling.

I tucked the box into my pillowcase and sat on the floor, staring at the cracked ceiling. Should I call Marguerite now? Confront her with proof? Or wait until I understood the whole truth?

*If she knows I found this, she won’t stop until it’s gone.*

My hands trembled as I hid the box again. I wasn’t ready. Not yet.

But I would be.