Talia understood that.
Elias did not.
He only saw her in passing.
At breakfast, rinsing Harper’s cup.
In the hallway, carrying clean blankets.
Near the nursery door, sitting on the floor as though a maid had nothing better to do than waste time with a silent child.
Once, he heard her voice while he was walking past.
- “You don’t have to do anything today,” Talia whispered. “Just being here counts.”
Elias stopped outside the door.
Harper was in her chair.
Talia sat several feet away with a wooden puzzle in her lap.
- “Some days, your body says, ‘No thank you.’ That’s okay. Bodies get scared too.”
Elias’s jaw tightened.
He stepped into the room.
- “Her body isn’t scared,” he said. “Her doctors said there’s no physical reason she can’t move.”
Talia looked up calmly.
- “That doesn’t mean moving feels safe.”
He hated how gently she said it.
As if she knew something he did not.
- “Are you a doctor, Miss Brooks?”
- “No.”
- “Then please don’t diagnose my daughter.”
The room went still.
Talia lowered her eyes.
- “I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention.”
Harper’s fingers tightened around Amelia’s scarf.
Elias saw it and mistook it for distress.
- “Harper doesn’t need theories,” he said. “She needs stability.”
Talia nodded.
- “Yes, sir.”
He left with the familiar satisfaction of having restored order.
Only later, alone in his car, did he realize that for the first time in months, Harper had turned her face toward someone’s voice.
And it had not been his.
The days moved closer to Christmas.
Boston turned silver with winter.
Snow gathered along the window ledges. Wreaths appeared on doors up and down the street. Children in bright coats passed the brownstone laughing, dragging sleds, their joy floating through the cold air like a language Elias no longer spoke.
Inside, Margaret decorated anyway.
Garland on the banister.
Candles in the windows.
A tall Christmas tree in the parlor, though Harper had not reached for an ornament in two years.
Elias told himself it was cruel.
Margaret told him grief did not get to cancel Christmas forever.
On the morning of December twenty-second, Elias left for work before sunrise.
Harper was asleep.
Talia was in the kitchen, kneading dough for something Margaret had requested. Flour dusted her sleeves. She looked up as he entered.
- “Good morning, Mr. Carter.”
He grabbed coffee from the counter.
- “Morning.”
He started to leave, then paused.
He did not know why.
