Chapter 6 - The Woman Who Taught Lily the Song
“Don’t use my wife to save yourself.”
Nathaniel’s voice was dangerously quiet.
Everett remained seated.
“I’m not.”
“You expect me to believe Evelyn asked you to control me?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
Everett rubbed his hands over his face.
“Evelyn asked me to protect Hail Holdings if her death destroyed you.”
Nathaniel stared.
“She was afraid you would abandon everything.”
“That isn’t what her recordings say.”
“Because she changed her mind.”
Everett described the final months of Evelyn’s life.
At first, Evelyn had been terrified.
Not of death.
Of what would happen afterward.
Nathaniel loved intensely. Evelyn knew losing her might break him.
She asked Everett and Richard Vale to prepare contingency plans.
Temporary management structures.
Limited authority.
Protection against impulsive decisions.
“At first,” Everett said, “everything was legitimate.”
“And then?”
“Then I started deciding what was best for you.”
Nathaniel’s jaw tightened.
Everett looked ashamed.
“It worked.”
“What worked?”
“Filtering things. Reducing stress. Canceling unnecessary meetings. Handling problems before they reached you.”
“You liked the power.”
Everett did not deny it.
“Eventually.”
“And Evelyn noticed.”
“Yes.”
“She withdrew her permission.”
“Yes.”
“But you continued.”
“Yes.”
Nathaniel looked at him.
“Why?”
Everett’s answer was quiet.
“Because you trusted me more when you needed me.”
There it was.
Not money.
Not initially.
Dependency.
Everett had built his identity around being indispensable to Nathaniel Hail.
When Nathaniel recovered, Everett’s importance diminished.
So Everett made sure recovery never became independence.
Nathaniel asked about Grace.
Everett looked away.
“I told her not to bring up Evelyn because every time she did, you fell apart.”
“You told my daughter I didn’t want to hear about her mother.”
“I thought I was helping.”
“You made a six-year-old responsible for my emotions.”
Everett closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Nathaniel’s anger nearly overwhelmed him.
Then Lily’s voice drifted from the hall.
She was humming.
The lullaby.
Nathaniel looked toward the doorway.
Marisol appeared and quietly led Lily away.
Everett watched them.
“Helen taught her?”
“Yes.”
“I wondered.”
“You erased the footage.”
“The system did.”
“You created the system.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Everett hesitated.
“Because after Grace died, Claire kept entering the room.”
Nathaniel frowned.
“She was searching for the recordings.”
“I knew.”
“So you deleted evidence of her visits.”
“I didn’t want you seeing her.”
“Why?”
“Because she would have told you everything.”
Nathaniel laughed bitterly.
“At least you finally said it.”
Everett lowered his head.
Nathaniel asked about Richard Vale.
Everett explained that Richard had drafted the contingency documents.
Unlike Everett, however, Richard had withdrawn when Evelyn changed her mind.
“He told me to stop.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Nathaniel stood.
“You’re finished here.”
Everett nodded.
“I assumed.”
“You will give Daniel every password, account, archive, and access credential you possess.”
“Yes.”
“And then you leave Hollow Ridge.”
Everett rose.
At the doorway he stopped.
“Nathaniel.”
“What?”
“I did care about you.”
Nathaniel looked at him.
“That’s what makes this worse.”
Everett left.
But one mystery remained.
The lullaby.
Nathaniel returned to the attic and listened to Evelyn’s recording again.
This time he heard something he had missed.
At the end, after several seconds of silence, Evelyn spoke.
“Grace, if Daddy ever finds this with you, tell him the last verse.”
Nathaniel stopped the recording.
Last verse?
He called Claire.
She did not know it.
Helen did not know it.
Nathaniel searched Grace’s drawings.
Nothing.
Then Lily said, “Maybe it’s in the song box.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
“The music box?”
She nodded.
“The song stops funny.”
He wound it.
The melody played.
At the end, the mechanism clicked but did not fully stop.
Nathaniel examined the base.
There was another compartment.
Inside was a tiny strip of paper.
Grace’s handwriting.
Daddy’s chair.
Nathaniel went to his old study.
The chair behind his desk had belonged to his grandfather.
He turned it over.
Taped beneath the seat was a small flash drive.
Nathaniel laughed and cried at the same time.
Grace had outsmarted adults using hiding places only a child would choose.
He inserted the drive.
One video file appeared.
The date was four days before Grace died.
Nathaniel hesitated.
Then clicked.
Grace appeared on screen.
Yellow pajamas.
Messy hair.
Missing front tooth.
Nathaniel’s chest broke open.
“Hi, Daddy.”
He covered his mouth.
Grace smiled into the camera.
“Miss Claire showed me how to make a video.”
She leaned closer.
“Mommy said if people make you forget stuff, you have to remember yourself.”
Nathaniel cried silently.
Grace continued.
“I know you remember Mommy. Mr. Everett says talking about her makes you sick, but I think not talking makes you sadder.”
Nathaniel whispered, “You were right.”
Grace began singing.
The final verse.
“When the house grows quiet,
and you think love disappeared,
open every window,
because love was always here.”
Nathaniel bowed his head.
For years, Hollow Ridge had been sealed against memory.
Photographs stored.
Rooms locked.
Songs silenced.
He had believed forgetting would hurt less.
Grace had understood something adults had not.
Love was not the wound.
Losing it was.
The recording continued.
Then Grace said:
“And Daddy? If you’re watching this because I’m not there, don’t make my room sad forever.”
Nathaniel could not breathe.
“Let another kid laugh in it someday.”
The video ended.
Nathaniel sat alone for a long time.
Then he heard tiny footsteps.
Lily stood in the doorway.
“Mr. Hail?”
He wiped his face.
“Yes?”
“Are you crying?”
This time he smiled.
“Yes.”
Lily smiled back.
“My mom says that’s okay.”
Nathaniel laughed.
A real laugh.
The first one Hollow Ridge had heard from him in longer than anyone could remember.
But before healing could begin, Nathaniel still needed one final truth.
May you like
He needed to know exactly what happened the night Grace died—and whether Everett’s interference had touched even that terrible day.
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