“Fine,” Maya muttered. “But only because your car has heat.”
The residence was in a converted brick building near a church community complex.
Clean.
Modest.
Busy.
A woman at the desk knew Maya immediately and greeted her warmly.
That reassured me more than anything Maya had said.
We waited in a small sitting room while Maya called her mother.
Sophie discovered a shelf of board games.
Thirty minutes later, Elena Ruiz arrived wearing navy work trousers and the exhausted expression of someone who had ended a shift early and feared the reason.
She was younger than I expected.
Maybe thirty-seven.
Her eyes went immediately to Maya.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Then Elena saw me.
Her face changed.
“You’re Daniel Harrison.”
I stood.
“Yes.”
She looked at Sophie.
Then at the papers in Maya’s hand.
And something like recognition passed through her expression.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“You know who I am?” I asked.
Elena was silent.
Maya looked between us.
“Mom?”
Elena sat slowly.
“I knew your wife.”
Again.
Those words.
I felt the floor shift beneath a life I had believed I understood completely.
“How?”
Elena looked at Claire’s folded letter.
“She helped Maya.”
“I know that part.”
“No.”
Elena raised her eyes to mine.
“I mean after she got sick.”
My chest tightened.
Claire’s illness had lasted eight months.
Eight months of specialists, appointments, private rooms, hopeful percentages that became smaller percentages.
I knew every detail of those months.
Or I had thought I did.
“She continued seeing Maya?”
“Until about three weeks before she died.”
I sat down.
Sophie had stopped looking at the board games.
“What did Mom do?” she whispered.
Elena turned toward her.
Her expression softened.
“She talked about you all the time.”
Sophie froze.
“Really?”
“Constantly.”
“What did she say?”
“That you asked too many questions.”
Sophie smiled.
“She said that too.”
“And that you were brave enough to ask questions adults were embarrassed to ask.”
Sophie moved closer.
Elena looked back at me.
“Claire knew she might not have much time. She was worried Maya would lose the Northbridge opportunity.”
“So she arranged the letter.”
“Yes.”
“Was there more?”
Elena hesitated.
That hesitation told me everything.
“What else did she arrange?”
“I don’t know if she ever completed it.”
“Completed what?”
Elena looked toward Maya.
Maya appeared equally confused.
“Claire said she was setting up something that couldn’t disappear if she did.”
