Her father stayed for five days.
They were good days, the kind Aurora had not let herself fully hope for during the difficult weeks before his visit. He and Damian spent long hours talking, sometimes about the past, sometimes about business, occasionally circling back to the harder subject that had brought him here, each time with less heat and more genuine working toward understanding.
On the third evening her father asked her to walk with him in the garden alone.
They walked slowly along the same path she had walked the morning after Vanessa's first visit, when she had stood at the stone wall and admitted to herself that she was frightened. The evening air was cool and the garden was full of the particular gold light that came right before dusk.
"I want to tell you something," her fa
