Chapter 26
Matilda could not breathe.
Love.
Again.
Always imperfect.
Always mixed with fear.
“She trusted you?”
“In the end, yes.”
Elias turned away.
Matilda looked at him.
His shoulders trembled.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
One word.
Broken.
Thomas reached beneath his pillow.
A folded address.
“Santa Fe.”
Matilda took it.
The paper read:
Blue House, Calle Esperanza.
Two weeks later, Matilda stood before a small adobe home beneath a brilliant New Mexico sky.
Jedodiah was beside her.
Elias waited several yards back.
Thomas had been too weak to travel.
Matilda raised her hand.
Knocked.
Footsteps.
The door opened.
A woman stood there.
Her hair was completely silver.
Her face thinner.
Older.
But Matilda knew her eyes.
She had seen them in the mirror every morning of her life.
The woman covered her mouth.
“Mattie.”
Matilda did not move.
Her mother began crying.
“I'm sorry.”
Matilda's heart shattered.
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you.”
“Yes.”
“You let me think I had no mother.”
Margaret reached toward her.
Matilda stepped back.
Margaret's hand fell.
“You have every right to hate me.”
“I don't even know what I feel.”
“I understand.”
“No.”
Matilda shook her head.
“You don't get to understand for me.”
Margaret nodded.
“You're right.”
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Then Matilda asked the question that had haunted her entire life.
“Did you love me?”
Margaret broke.
“Oh, God.”
She covered her face.
“Every day.”
“Then why was fear always stronger?”
Margaret looked at her daughter.
“Because I confused protecting you with controlling what you were allowed to know.”
Matilda went still.
That was the first answer anyone had given her that felt completely true.
Margaret continued.
“I thought if you never knew, you could be free.”
“But I wasn't.”
“No.”
“You can't build freedom from lies.”
“No.”
Margaret began crying harder.
“I know that now.”
Matilda looked back.
Elias stood beneath a cottonwood tree.
Margaret followed her gaze.
Her entire body stiffened.
“Elias.”
He did not approach.
Margaret whispered, “You came.”
He answered from a distance.
“You didn't ask me to.”
A sad smile touched her mouth.
“You finally learned.”
Elias nodded.
“Too late.”
“Maybe.”
Something passed between them.
Twenty-three years of love.
Fear.
Regret.
Loss.
No easy reunion could erase it.
And Matilda was grateful neither tried.
Margaret invited them inside.
They spoke until nightfall.
She told Matilda everything.
How Anna had discovered the records.
How Thomas forged documents for Thatcher before guilt consumed him.