melody played clearly.
Soft.
Familiar.
A lullaby my mother used to hum when I was little.
I looked at her.
She was crying.
“I forgot that song,” I said.
“I didn’t,” she whispered.
Leo leaned into my side. “What is it?”
My mother wiped her cheeks.
“It’s the song I sang to your mom when she was a baby.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Did you sing it to me?”
The question quieted the room.
My mother’s face crumpled, but she held his gaze.
“For three days,” she said. “Every hour they let me hold you.”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
Then he smiled, small and aching.
“Then I heard it too.”
No one spoke for a moment.
The music box played on.
And I realized the final truth was not hidden in a letter or sealed in an agency file.
It was there, in the melody.
My mother had not been heartless.
