Chapter 166: The Return
Easter~
I don’t remember getting into the car. I only remember the look on Melody’s face when I said yes—that overwhelmed, tearful smile that made me feel like a child again. Like all the broken years had never happened.
Rose clutched my hand as we slid into the passenger seat of Melody’s small cream-colored car. It was Papa’s old car. The leather was worn in a familiar way, like a memory I hadn’t touched in years. I didn’t speak at first. My chest felt too tight. Too full.
The drive was quiet—just the low hum of tires on cobbled Paris streets and Rose murmuring to herself in the backseat, watching the world whiz past her window. Melody reached over and took my hand again, squeezing it like she couldn’t believe I was real.
"I was so scared you wouldn’t come," she whispered.
I tried to smile, but my lips trembled. "I can’t believe any of this is real, Mel."
Her eyes glistened. "It is. You’re going to see them, Easter. Mama and Papa. They’re waiting for you."
My heart thudded hard. The closer we got to our childhood home, the more I felt like I was unspooling inside. The ghosts I’d buried—the shame, the lies, the ache—they were all clawing their way to the surface.
Would Mama hug me? Would Papa cry? Would they finally believe me?
"Do they... know about Rose?" I asked, twisting around to glance at my daughter.
Melody’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Not yet. But I think they’ll be happy to meet her."