Chapter 11
The morning sun cast long, sharp shadows across the polished hardwood floors of the Victorian parlor. With the heavy dining table gone, the room felt shockingly vast, almost cavernous. Clara sat in her velvet armchair by the bay window, sorting through a stack of old leather-bound photograph albums, while Jax hauled cardboard boxes down from the attic.
For decades, the attic had been a forbidden zone of accumulated history—a dusty mausoleum filled with Arthur’s old ledgers, unused china sets, and boxes of heavy wool clothing that smelled of mothballs and repressed memories. Jax dropped a heavy cardboard box onto the bare parlor floor with a dull thud, kicking up a small cloud of dust in the morning light.
"That's the last of the upstairs storage," Jax said, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "If there's anything else up there, it's bolted to the floor."
Clara looked up from an open photograph album, her fingers tracing the sepia-toned edges of a picture taken in Chicago back in 1978. In the photograph, she was standing beside a grand piano, wearing a bright yellow sundress, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders, smiling with an expression of unbridled joy. There wasn't a black glove in sight.
"Do you know who took this picture?" Clara asked softly, not looking up.
Jax walked over, crouching beside her chair to look at the album. "Arthur?"
"No," Clara murmured, a wistful smile touching her lips. "A friend of mine from the conservatory. Arthur made me throw away all the other prints from that day because he said I looked 'unrefined.' He made me buy the black gloves the very next week."
Jax felt a familiar wave of anger toward the ghost of the man who had shaped their lives, but it was quickly replaced by a profound, grounding calm. He reached out and gently touched the corner of the photograph. "We should frame this one," he said quietly. "Put it right here on the mantel, where the old clock used to be."
Clara turned her head, looking down at her son with bright, moisture-filled eyes. "You really are changing, Jax. It's terrifying and wonderful all at once."
"Change is just maintenance, Ma," Jax replied with a small grin. "You keep the parts that work, and you throw out the junk that seizes up the engine."
Just then, the front doorbell rang, breaking the quiet intimacy of the morning. Jax stood up, brushing dust from his jeans, and walked down the hallway to answer it. When he swung the heavy front door open, he was surprised to see Elena standing on the porch, holding a brown paper bag that smelled unmistakably of freshly baked cinnamon rolls.
May you like
"I brought breakfast," Elena said simply, offering a bright, confident smile that cut right through the morning chill. "Thought you two might need some sugar while you tear apart the last of the family museum."
Jax stepped aside, a broad, genuine smile spreading across his face. "Come on in, Elena. Perfect timing. We were just looking at old ghosts."
