Chapter 6 — Eudora Saw the Woman in the Hidden Room
Roderick stared.
“You brought her here?”
Celestine nodded.
“Why?”
“She wanted to see the room.”
“The records.”
“The photographs.”
“She had never seen anything from the first year of her life.”
Roderick shook his head slowly.
“So you let her into my childhood home before telling me she existed.”
Celestine looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Through this passage?”
“Yes.”
Roderick laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Celestine continued.
Mara did not want to enter through the front door.
She felt she had no right.
Celestine told her there was a discreet way to reach the archive room.
They entered from an old service door near the garden wall.
Spent less than an hour inside.
Then Eudora appeared.
Roderick looked toward her.
“How?”
Eudora had been playing upstairs.
She opened the wardrobe looking for an old costume.
The false back had not latched properly after Celestine passed through.
Eudora pushed it.
Then followed the light.
She reached the hidden room.
And found Celestine sitting beside a woman she had never seen before.
“What did you tell her?”
Celestine hesitated.
“That Mara was a family friend.”
Roderick stared.
“Then?”
Eudora saw the photographs.
She saw a baby.
She saw Roderick as a child.
She heard Mara say:
“I wish my brother knew I was here.”
Eudora immediately asked:
“Who’s your brother?”
Celestine panicked.
She told Eudora they were preparing a surprise for Daddy.
And that she must not tell him yet.
Roderick’s jaw tightened.
“You made our daughter carry this?”
“For three days.”
“Three days is three days too many.”
Celestine nodded.
“I know.”
“Did she ask to tell me?”
Celestine started crying harder.
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Every day.”
Roderick looked away.
He was furious.
But underneath the anger was something worse.
His daughter had spent three days watching him while carrying a secret about his own family.
No wonder she had cried.
Then he remembered how Celestine had covered Eudora’s mouth.
His face hardened.
“You physically stopped her from telling me.”
Celestine looked horrified at herself now.
“I panicked.”
“I know that doesn’t excuse it.”
“No.”
“It doesn’t.”
Roderick walked out of the hidden room.
He returned to Eudora.
The little girl stood the moment she saw him.
“Daddy?”
Roderick knelt.
She immediately wrapped both arms around his neck.
“I’m sorry.”
Roderick pulled back.
“No.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“But I didn’t tell.”
“Because an adult told you not to.”
“That was not your responsibility.”
Eudora looked toward Celestine.
Then whispered:
“Is the lady really your sister?”
Roderick looked at his daughter.
For the first time in his life, he answered:
“I think she might be.”
Then Eudora said something neither parent expected.
“She left something for you.”