Part 7
PART 7
Hannah did not go to Margaret’s house that night.
Margaret wanted to ask.
She did not.
Wanting could become pressure too easily, and Hannah had already lived through enough adults deciding what was best.
So Hannah stayed at the airport hotel.
Margaret booked the room, paid at the desk, and handed the key card to Hannah without asking to come up.
That mattered.
Hannah looked down at the card.
“You’re not coming?”
“Only if you ask.”
Hannah’s face trembled.
“I don’t know what I want.”
Margaret nodded.
“Then I’ll be in the lobby for a while.”
“Not waiting to trap you.”
“Just nearby.”
Hannah almost smiled.
“That sounds like waiting.”
Margaret managed a broken laugh.
“It is.”
“But the door is yours.”
At two in the morning, Hannah came down wearing the same sweater and carrying the stuffed backpack she had brought from Portland.
Margaret was asleep in a lobby chair with her coat folded under her head.
Hannah stood there for a long moment.
This woman had slapped her.
This woman had sung a song from before memory.
This woman had kept a yellow room for twenty years.
None of it made sense.
All of it felt true.
“Margaret?”
Margaret woke instantly.
“Are you alright?”
Hannah sat in the chair across from her.
“I think I want to see the room.”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“Now?”
“If that’s okay.”
Margaret stood so quickly she nearly dropped her purse.
“Yes.”
Then she stopped.
“If you change your mind in the car, we turn around.”
Hannah nodded.
The drive to Margaret’s house was quiet.
Denver snow dusted the lawns.
Streetlights moved across Hannah’s face as she stared out the window.
When they pulled into the driveway, she saw a modest brick house with a porch light glowing.
Not a mansion.
Not a shrine from the outside.
Just a home that had been waiting too long.
Margaret unlocked the door.
Inside smelled like lemon polish, old books, and something warm from a slow cooker Margaret had forgotten to turn off.
Hannah stood in the entryway.
Her breath caught when she saw the photos.
A little girl on a swing.
A little girl holding a red balloon.
A little girl with dark blond curls and a crescent birthmark visible above a summer dress.
Hannah walked closer.
Her fingers hovered over the frame.
“That was me.”
Margaret stood several steps behind her.
“Yes.”
“My hair was curlier.”
Margaret smiled through tears.
“You hated brushing it.”
Hannah let out a soft, broken laugh.
Then she turned down the hallway.
She knew which door it was before Margaret pointed.
A small brass sun hung from the doorknob.
Hannah touched it.
“Yellow.”
Margaret’s voice trembled.
“Yes.”
Hannah opened the door.
The room was not frozen like a museum.
That surprised her.
The walls were pale yellow.
A quilt lay folded on the bed.
There were new curtains, fresh books on a shelf, and one old wooden rocking chair near the window.
On the dresser sat a framed photo of Olivia at four years old and a small pair of red mittens under glass.
Hannah covered her mouth.
“I remember those.”
Margaret stayed in the doorway.
“I found one in the car after you disappeared.”
“The other was missing.”
Hannah opened her backpack with shaking hands.
From a small inner pocket, she removed an old red mitten.
Faded.
Worn thin.
Margaret made a sound that was almost a sob.
“My adoptive mother kept it.”
Hannah’s voice broke.
“She said I wouldn’t sleep without it.”
Margaret stepped into the room only after Hannah looked at her and nodded.
They placed the two mittens side by side on the bed.
Two halves of a childhood separated by lies and returned by accident.
Hannah sat on the floor.
Margaret sat beside her.
Not too close.
Close enough.
Hannah whispered, “I don’t know whether to be happy or furious.”
Margaret nodded.
“You can be both.”
“Are you?”
Margaret looked at the mittens.
“Yes.”
May you like
They stayed there until dawn, two women in a yellow room, sitting beside proof that love had waited even when truth had not.
Continue to PART 8 to see Richard return to face the yellow room, Hannah confront him with the red mitten, and Margaret finally decide what happens to her marriage.
