Rachel, silent until then, came out with a second blanket and gently draped it over her.
“Stay the night. It’s too cold to be out there,” she said gently. But there was a flicker of steel in her eyes.
The days that followed were surreal. Catherine stayed. She tried to talk to me—asked about college, my friends, my major. But every question pushed me further away. I couldn’t forget that night when she left, when I cried holding the stuffed owl she’d given me the year before. Still, what confused me most was Dad. He was… warm to her. He chatted with her. They even went to lunch one day.
Rachel kept smiling. Kept cooking. But she had started to talk less. She watched from the background as Catherine floated back into our lives.
I feared the worst—that my dad, out of nostalgia or guilt, would let Catherine back in and forget the woman who stayed.
