I felt tears rising.
“Patricia.”
She looked at me.
“You don’t have to earn your place here by promising not to need anything.”
Her mouth trembled.
She began crying.
I opened the cottage door.
Inside were clean blankets, a stocked refrigerator, a small reading chair, and a window overlooking the orchard.
She stepped inside.
Then turned toward me.
“How long can I stay?”
I explained the program’s housing arrangements and support plan.
She listened carefully.
Then she whispered, “I haven’t slept properly in weeks.”
I placed the keys in her hand.
“Then tonight would be a good time to start.”
When I returned to my own house, I sat beneath Thomas’s photograph.
“You were right,” I whispered.
“People need somewhere they can close the door.”
The house was quiet.
But it no longer felt empty.
Chapter Fifteen: The Woman Who Came Back
The next spring, almost exactly one year after Vanessa arrived at my gate with her parents and a suitcase, the security monitor chimed again.
