CHAPTER 15: The Woman in Maine
Clara’s aunt lived in a white clapboard house outside Camden, Maine, where the road bent toward the water and the air smelled of salt and pine.
Aunt June opened the door before Ethan could knock. She was small, silver-haired, and wrapped in a blue robe, but when she saw Clara’s face, something fierce moved through her.
“Oh, honey,” she whispered.
Clara fell into her arms.
Ethan stood on the porch holding Noah, feeling like an intruder in the only safe place his wife had left.
June looked over Clara’s shoulder at him.
“You brought them here?”
“Yes.”
“You staying?”
“If Clara wants me to.”
June studied him for a long second. Then she stepped aside.
“Good answer.”
The house was small compared to the Caldwell estate. Its floors creaked. The guest room had mismatched lamps. The kitchen table was scratched from decades of family meals. But Clara breathed easier the moment she entered.
That told Ethan everything.
Later, while Clara slept upstairs with Noah nearby, June poured Ethan coffee in a mug that said WORLD’S OKAYEST AUNT.
“What did Margaret do?” she asked.
Ethan told her enough.
June did not look surprised.
“She called me after the wedding,” June said.
Ethan looked up.
“What?”
“She wanted to know if Clara had any history of emotional instability. Any family scandals. Any debts. Anything she should be aware of.”
Ethan felt sick.
“What did you tell her?”
June’s eyes narrowed.
“I told her Clara had survived more loss with more grace than any rich woman I’d ever met.”
May you like
Then she leaned forward.
“And I told her if she hurt my niece, I’d become very inconvenient.”
