Evelyn's POV
She had not expected it to break her open.
She had been composed all morning. Through Richard's arrival and his words and the folder and the trust and all the things he had said so plainly. She had held all of it steadily. She had held it the way she always held hard things, with both hands and a straight back.
But Samuel played that melody.
And Mrs. Adaeze said her mother had hummed it to her through the wall of her own body.
And it broke her.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. She pressed both hands over her face and her shoulders came up and she breathed in sharp and uneven, and the sound that came out of her was small and private, the kind of sound a person makes when they have been carrying something for a very long time and someone finally, without warning, puts their h
