[COMPLETED] The Night My Silent Daughters Began to Sing Again

Isabelle had looked at me over her shoulder, one hand resting on her hip.

“Always.”

The memory vanished when Olivia crossed the library and stopped beneath a framed photograph on the lower shelf.

It had been taken at Nora’s second birthday. Isabelle stood behind the girls with cake frosting on her thumb. I was beside her, pretending not to smile.

Marco Romano stood at the edge of the frame.

My older brother.

My second-in-command.

The man who had moved into the east wing after Isabelle died because, in his words, I should not be alone with three children and a house full of employees I did not trust.

Sophie raised one shaking finger.

“Uncle Marco.”

The name was barely air.

I heard it anyway.

Grace did not look at me. She stayed crouched near Sophie, her body angled so the children could see her face.

Olivia reached for the photograph and turned it facedown.

That gesture did what the whispered name had not.

It made belief possible.

I knelt.

Every instinct I had developed over twenty years told me to ask for details. Where had they seen him? What had he done? Who else was there?

Grace caught my eye and gave the smallest shake of her head.

I hated taking orders.

I obeyed.

“All right,” I said.

Sophie looked at me as if waiting for thunder.

Instead I put both hands flat on my knees where she could see them.

“You don’t have to tell me anything else right now.”

Nora climbed onto the window seat Isabelle had insisted on building before any of the girls existed. Olivia sat beside her. Sophie stayed close to Grace.

A floorboard creaked in the hall.

All three children went rigid.

Not startled.

Prepared.

That distinction cut through me.

Footsteps approached the library.

Slow. Familiar. Unhurried.

Grace stood.

I rose with her.

Marco appeared in the doorway wearing a navy suit and the easy expression he had worn at funerals, baptisms, business dinners, and every bad day of my adult life.

He looked first at me.

Then Grace.

Then the girls.

His gaze paused on the photograph lying facedown.

Only for a fraction of a second.

But I had spent my life surviving fractions of seconds.

“Dom,” he said. “I thought you were in Newark until tonight.”

“I finished early.”

“Good.”

He smiled at the girls.

None of them smiled back.

Marco’s attention returned to me.