Chapter 13 — The Brother Who Wouldn’t Put Her Down
Roderick sat on the floor of the archive room holding the photograph.
Eudora sat beside him.
“That’s you?”
“Yes.”
“And Aunt Mara?”
Roderick smiled.
“Mirelle then.”
“Mara now.”
Eudora looked at the picture.
Five-year-old Roderick was sitting on a sofa.
A baby rested awkwardly across his lap.
His arms were wrapped around her protectively.
He looked terrified and proud.
“You loved her.”
Roderick’s eyes filled.
“Looks like I did.”
He sent Mara a photograph of the image.
Her response came almost immediately.
So I wasn’t a stranger to you once.
Roderick replied:
No.
They made us strangers later.
That became the truth neither sibling wanted softened.
Mara had received a loving adoptive family.
She was grateful for them.
Roderick had received loving parents in many ways too.
He had happy childhood memories.
None of that made the lie necessary.
The adults could have explained an adoption.
They could have allowed age-appropriate contact.
They could have told Roderick:
Your sister lives with another family.
Instead Alaric chose a simpler story for himself.
Mirelle died.
Do not ask.
Grieve.
Move on.
But children do not always move on from unanswered grief.
Roderick had spent years wondering why he dreamed of a sister he barely remembered.
He sometimes heard babies cry and felt an inexplicable sadness.
He had hated visiting cemeteries as a child because he imagined Mirelle buried somewhere without knowing where.
Now he knew there had never been a grave.
There had been a girl.
Then a woman.
Living an entire life under another surname.
Mara had her own version of the missing space.
She grew up knowing she was adopted.
But was told her biological family could not care for her.
She never knew there had been an older brother who adored holding her.
When she saw the photograph, she printed it.
She placed it beside the wooden rabbit.
Months later, Roderick visited Mara’s home.
She showed him the small shelf.
Rabbit.
Photograph.
Adoption documents.
“That’s the beginning of my Ainsworth section,” she joked.
Roderick smiled.
“Dangerous.”
“Why?”
“There are a lot of us.”
They laughed.
That laughter mattered.
The relationship eventually contained more than grief.
They argued.
Discovered they had opposite political opinions on some things.
Liked the same terrible dessert.
Both hated olives.
Both tapped their fingers when impatient.
Eudora loved noticing similarities.
“You both do face.”
Mara laughed.
“What face?”
Eudora imitated their skeptical expression.
Roderick groaned.
“Unfortunate genetics.”
For Eudora, Mara slowly became Aunt Mara.
Not because anyone demanded it.
Because familiarity grew.
One afternoon, Mara and Celestine finally sat alone together after months of awkwardness.
Mara said:
“I was angry with you.”
Celestine nodded.
“You should have been.”
“You didn’t keep me secret because you hated me.”
“No.”
“You thought you were protecting him.”
“Yes.”
Mara looked at her.
“That’s what everybody in this family keeps saying right before they take someone’s choice away.”
Celestine went quiet.
Then nodded.
“I know.”
It was uncomfortable.
It was also true.
The hidden wardrobe had become almost symbolic by then.
For decades, the mansion had literally contained a wall behind a wall.
A room behind a room.
A family history behind the version everyone was allowed to see.
Roderick eventually decided not to restore the wardrobe exactly as it had been.
He had the false panel removed.
The passage remained behind a secure glass-and-wood door.
Visible.
Locked for safety.
But no longer disguised.
Celestine asked why.
Roderick answered:
“Because I don’t want the house pretending the room isn’t there.”
The same could be said for the family.
Then Eudora asked whether she could put a sign on the new door.
Roderick agreed.
She made one herself.
In enormous uneven letters:
FAMILY HISTORY ROOM — NO MORE SECRETS.
Roderick laughed.
Celestine cried.
Mara asked for a photograph.
And that little sign remained there for years.
But Roderick still had one thing left to do.
He needed to decide what story Eudora would remember about the day she stood crying beside the wardrobe.
And he refused to let her remember herself as the child who almost betrayed her mother.