It was barely above a whisper, and for a second I almost missed it. Sophie had been so quiet that morning I’d forgotten she was behind me. She was twelve, an old soul in a young body—Catherine always said that, and Catherine should know because Catherine was my daughter, a surgeon, a woman who cut into emergencies for a living and still came home to pack Sophie’s lunch with notes shaped like hearts.
Sophie was staying with us for two weeks while Catherine handled a crisis at the hospital. It wasn’t unusual. Sophie loved our house, loved the view of the water from the back deck, loved helping me feed the crows that gathered like they owned the neighborhood.
At least, I thought she loved it.
I glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
Her face was pale. Not just tired pale—scared pale. Her eyes were wide and shiny, her hands clenched together in her lap so tight the knuckles showed white.
“What is it, sweetheart?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.
“Can we… can we not go home right now?” she said.
The words cracked at the end, and something in my chest tightened.
“Not go home?” I repeated, turning around in my seat. “Sophie, are you feeling sick?”
She shook her head fast. “No. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
She swallowed, like her throat had become too small. Tears gathered but didn’t fall yet, as if she was trying to be brave and failing by inches.
“I heard Grandma talking last night,” she whispered.
I felt a cold thread move through my stomach. “Talking to who?”
“On the phone,” Sophie said. “Late. After you went to bed.”
I stared at her, my mind trying to make a harmless story out of it. Margaret on a late call with a friend. Margaret gossiping. Margaret discussing her retreat. Margaret complaining about me. None of those would make Sophie look like this.
“What did you hear?” I asked carefully.
Sophie looked down at her hands, then back up at me like she was asking permission to break something fragile.
“She was talking about money,” Sophie said. “A lot of money.”
My throat went dry. Margaret and money—nothing new. She liked security. She liked control. She’d always managed our social calendar and our home like a kingdom. But money wasn’t usually secret between us. Or so I thought.
Sophie’s voice dropped even lower. “She said… ‘Once he’s gone, everything will be mine.’”
I didn’t breathe.