“Three o’clock. But there’s something you need to see first.” Marianne’s voice was taut, like a wire about to snap. She handed Eleanor a key—small, brass, old-fashioned. “It was in his sock drawer. Taped underneath.”

Marianne’s face crumpled, just for a second. “I found out six months ago. I came to see him—really see him, not just the nursing home visits. He was lucid that day. He told me everything. He made me promise not to tell you until after.”

Eleanor kept playing. The notes were flawed, the tempo uneven, but it didn’t matter. For the first time in their lives, the four of them were in the same room, breathing the same air, bound by the same wound.

“Of course I came.” Eleanor set down her bag. “Where’s the lawyer meeting?”

Family, Eleanor thought, was not the people you chose. It was the people you couldn’t stop being related to, no matter how hard you tried. And the only way through the inheritance of shadows was to sit together in the dark, and listen.