Chapter 5
“You stayed because you loved him.”
Norah looked away.
The honesty hurt more than denial.
She had spent the entire walk convincing herself she had left because of one sentence.
But one sentence could not erase three years.
It could only reveal what those years had been built on.
At 6:30 a.m., Mara made tea and toast.
Norah ate half a slice because Mara watched until she did.
Then Mara handed her a small envelope.
“This came for you last week.”
Norah frowned.
The envelope was cream-colored, addressed in her mother’s handwriting.
Her breath stopped.
“My mother?”
“She left it with the attorney before she passed.”
Norah turned the envelope over.
It had been sealed, but the paper was worn at the edges.
Mara sat across from her at the tiny kitchen table.
“I forgot it was in my desk.”
“You had this for a week?”
“I thought it was a sympathy letter or something legal.”
Norah traced her thumb over her mother’s name.
Her mother had died eighteen months earlier, after a short illness that had left Norah feeling as though the world had removed its foundation without warning.
Nico had arranged everything.
The hospital room.
The funeral home.
The quiet apartment where Norah had returned afterward and found every light turned on.
He had never once asked her to repay him.
That was why she had believed his love was different.
Now, sitting in Mara’s kitchen with the envelope between her hands, she wondered whether gratitude had blurred the line between love and dependence long before Nico spoke in his office.
She opened it carefully.
Inside was a single sheet of paper and a small brass key.
Norah read the letter once.
Then again.
Her mother’s words were simple.
Norah,
If you are reading this, I am no longer able to explain what I should have told you years ago.
There is a storage room beneath the old catering kitchen on Bell Street.
The lease is in your name.
I paid for it as long as I could, but the contents belong to you.
Do not let anyone persuade you that you have nothing without them.
You have more than you know.
Love,
Mom.
Norah stared at the page.
Mara leaned forward.
“What is on Bell Street?”
“The first kitchen.”
“Your mother’s?”
Norah nodded.
The catering business had closed after her mother’s illness.
Norah had assumed the building had been sold.