Emma laughed until tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
Then she asked the question I had feared.
“How did Mom die?”
I looked at Rachel.
We had told Emma the simple truth when she was younger: Claire became very sick, and the doctors could not make her better.
But Emma was no longer four.
“She had a heart infection,” I said. “It became serious very quickly.”
“Did she know she was going to die?”
My throat tightened.
“Not at first.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
That answer remained one of the most painful truths of my life.
Claire had felt tired for weeks. She blamed work, then a lingering cold. By the time she went to the hospital, the infection had damaged a valve in her heart.
Everything happened within days.
I had been at her bedside when she died.
At least, that was what I had always believed I understood.
Rachel closed the album.
“Emma, your mother loved you from the moment she knew you were coming.”
“Did she leave me anything?”
I thought of the sheet music and the hidden folder.
“Probably more than we know.”
