CHAPTER 5: The Grandmother Who Went Pale
Regina Ellison was seventy-one, elegant, and colder than the marble floors in her family mansion. She wore black gloves even in spring and pearls that had belonged to three generations of women who believed money was a birthright, not a blessing.
She had come out of the building expecting to remind Victoria not to be late for the board luncheon. Instead, she found her daughter-in-law kneeling before a homeless boy who looked exactly like Nathan.
Regina stopped walking.
For the first time Victoria could remember, the old woman’s face lost its perfect control.
“What is this?” Regina asked.
Victoria stood slowly. She still held the locket. “That’s what I’m about to find out.”
Regina’s eyes flicked to the gold circle in Victoria’s palm. The movement was tiny, but Victoria saw it. Fear. Recognition. Calculation.
“Give that to me,” Regina said.
Caleb stepped backward.
Nathan moved in front of him.
Victoria looked at Regina, and something inside her shifted. For six years she had accepted Regina’s version of strength: silence, posture, family reputation above truth. She had let the older woman decide how much grief was acceptable, how much suspicion was shameful, how much memory was weakness.
Not anymore.
“Why?” Victoria asked.
Regina’s jaw tightened. “Because you are standing in the street making a spectacle of yourself.”
“No. I’m standing in the street holding my dead son’s locket.”
The words landed like glass breaking.
Regina glanced around. People were slowing down now. A security guard at the Ellison entrance had turned his head. A woman with a phone lifted it halfway before thinking better of recording.
Regina lowered her voice. “Victoria, listen to me carefully. That child is using you. Look at him.”
Caleb’s face hardened, but his eyes filled.
Nathan snapped, “Don’t talk about him like that.”
Regina stared at her grandson. “Nathan, step away.”
“No.”
Victoria had never heard that tone from him before. Small, frightened, but firm.
Regina’s gaze returned to Victoria. “You lost a baby. Grief makes women see ghosts.”
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Victoria lifted the locket and opened it in front of her.
“Then why are you afraid of a ghost?”
