## Chapter Six — People Always Leave
That evening, Lily found Mrs. Carter in the kitchen, already preparing Sunday’s meals in advance.
“Mrs. Carter? Can I ask you something?”
“Anything, dear.” The older woman set down her mixing bowl.
“Do you think Mr. Blackwood really wants to adopt me? Or does he just feel like he has to, because I helped Ethan?”
Mrs. Carter wiped her hands on her apron, considering her answer carefully. “When I came to work for the Blackwoods, Ethan was just a baby, and Mrs. Blackwood was still alive. They were happy.” A pause. “Then she died, and something in Mr. Blackwood hardened. He still loved Ethan fiercely, but he became all about work. Control. Planning for every contingency.”
She smiled at Lily. “Then you appeared. This fierce little thing who couldn’t be controlled or planned for. And suddenly Mr. Blackwood had to adapt. To open up. To let someone new into the fortress he’d built.”
“So it’s not just because I helped Ethan?”
“Oh, that might have been the door that opened. But you’re the one who walked through it. I’ve known Mr. Blackwood for almost eight years, Lily. He doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do. And he certainly doesn’t make decisions based on obligation alone.”
Lily absorbed this. “What was Mrs. Blackwood like?”
A shadow crossed Mrs. Carter’s face. “Catherine was wonderful. Warm. Creative. Always laughing. Ethan has her smile.” She picked up her mixing bowl again, turning it in her hands. “She got sick very suddenly. Cancer. By the time they diagnosed it, it was everywhere. Mr. Blackwood moved heaven and earth trying to save her — flew in specialists from around the world, funded new research. But some things even money can’t fix.”
“He doesn’t talk about her much.”
“No. The grief nearly destroyed him.” Mrs. Carter reached out and touched Lily’s cheek, gently. “But I see him coming back now, a little more each day. And you’re a big part of that — whether you decide to become a Blackwood officially or not.”
In the eight years she had worked here, Mrs. Carter added, the house itself had changed with the grief. The gardens had been turned over to professionals. The laughter had gone quiet. Rooms had been closed off and never reopened — Catherine’s painting studio among them, its easel still standing, its tubes of color still in the drawer, the door locked and the key kept in a place Maxwell never opened. “He couldn’t bear to look at it,” Mrs. Carter said, turning the mixing bowl in her hands. “And he couldn’t bear to get rid of it, either. Grief is like that. It holds on to the doorframe.”
Lily was quiet for a long moment. Somewhere in her chest, a small understanding was forming — that a person could own the whole world and still lose the only thing in it that mattered.
That night, Lily couldn’t sleep. She slipped out of bed and padded silently to the enormous windows, where the whole glittering city lay spread out below. Somewhere out there were the streets that had been her home just weeks ago. The contrast was dizzying, like standing on a cliff.
A soft knock. The door opened, and Ethan appeared on his crutches.
“Can’t sleep either?” He made his way to the window seat beside her.
“I keep thinking about what your dad said,” Lily admitted. “About adoption.”
“Are you scared?” he asked, perceptive.
“What if it doesn’t work out? What if I do something wrong and he changes his mind?”
“He won’t,” Ethan said, with absolute certainty. “Dad doesn’t change his mind. When he decides something, that’s it.”
“People always leave eventually,” Lily said quietly. “My parents died. My grandma died. The foster family sent me back.”
“We won’t.” Ethan said it with the simple, unshakeable conviction of a child. “I always wanted a sister. Even one from the streets — especially one from the streets. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.” He yawned, the late hour catching up with him. “Will you at least think about it? Being my sister for real?”
“I’ll think about it,” Lily promised.
She helped him back to his room, then returned to the window alone. Snow was beginning to fall over the city, thick and quiet, softening all the hard edges. Tomorrow was Sunday — the day Maxwell had set aside for Ethan, no work allowed, a rule that had quietly expanded to include her. He’d planned something special.
Maybe, she thought, she would give him her answer then.
She couldn’t know that tomorrow would bring a crisis — something that would test the whole fragile thing they were building in ways none of them could anticipate.
