Chapter 64 The Mother Who Lost Everything
Grayson:
The Hart house smelled the same. Clean linen. Old wood. A faint trace of tea leaves that had soaked too long. The kind of smell that came from routine, not effort. From a life that had not been rearranged yet, even though everything in it had been taken apart.
That was the first thing that unsettled me. Grief hadn’t come for her all at once. It had worn her down in stages; first Richard, then the long waiting, then the night Evie didn’t come home.
Mrs. Hart opened the door herself. Two guards stood far enough back to be mistaken for shadows.
Caretakers rotated quietly through the house now: unobtrusive, vetted, loyal. I had ordered it when she began losing track of time.
She blinked when she saw me, as if I’d arrived out of sequence.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re early.”
“I didn’t give a time,” I replied gently.
She waved that away. “Richard will be back soon. He hates it when guests arrive before he does.”
My chest tightened.
“Yes,” I said, my throat tightening. “I remember.”
She smiled at that, relieved, and stepped aside to let me in.
The house was quiet in the way grief makes spaces quiet: not empty, but paused. Furniture untouched. Curtains half-drawn. A stack of folded laundry sat on the couch, perfectly arranged, as if someone had meant to finish a task and simply… hadn’t.
Judy had been the one to call me weeks ago, voice shaking, words precise. Evie’s old companion from the Luna wing. The only one I trusted to stay without watching.
Judy moved through the house now with the ease of someone who loved it once for Evie’s sake.
When Mrs. Hart forgot things, Judy remembered for her.
When she refused help, Judy stayed anyway.
Mrs. Hart led me into the dining room. Judy was also there, gave me a small nod, and left the room.
The table was set for three
One place was smaller. Lighter china. A napkin folded the way Evie used to do when she was young, corners tucked in carefully.
Mrs. Hart noticed me looking.
“She’ll be late,” she said. “She always is when she’s working too hard.”
I said nothing.
She moved to the stove, stirring a pot that had clearly been reheated more than once.
“It’s Tuesday, isn’t it?” she asked over her shoulder.
“It is,” I answered.
She frowned. “No. That can’t be right. Richard has meetings on Tuesdays.”
Her hand stilled.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Then it must be Wednesday.”
I did not correct her. She brought two bowls to the table, hesitated, then placed a third one anyway.
“Sit,” she said, gesturing to Evie’s chair without realizing it.
I did.
The chair felt too light beneath me.
She sat across from me, hands folded in her lap, eyes drifting to the empty place beside her.
“Evie loved this soup when she was little,” she said. “She said it tasted like home.”
Her voice didn’t break. That was worse.
“She used to burn her tongue every time,” Mrs. Hart continued, a small smile forming. “Never learned patience. Always wanted everything now.”
I remembered that girl. Knees scraped. Hair pulled back too tight. The way she used to argue with Chloe and then make up five minutes later because holding grudges felt exhausting.
“She still does,” I said before I could stop myself.
Mrs. Hart looked up. “Does she?”
The word hung between us.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
She nodded, satisfied, and began to eat.
Halfway through, she stopped.
“Have you eaten?” she asked suddenly.
“Yes.”
“You’re thinner,” she said. “Alpha duties must be wearing you down.”
“Perhaps.”
She studied my face for a long moment, eyes narrowing with something like recognition.
“You look tired,” she said slowly. “Not working tired. Waiting tired.”
My hands tightened beneath the table.
“She would have hated that,” she added. “You waiting instead of living.”
I swallowed.
“She asked me once,” Mrs. Hart continued, “if you were cruel, or just afraid.”
The words struck hard.
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
She shrugged. “That men who are afraid often pretend they’re cruel because fear feels like weakness.”
I bowed my head.
“She defended you,” Mrs. Hart said. “Even when Richard warned her not to.”
Richard.
Alive again, in her voice.
“She said you were trying,” Mrs. Hart went on. “That you were listening. That you were changing.”
I closed my eyes.
“I was,” I said. “Too late.”
Mrs. Hart reached across the table then and placed her hand over mine.
It trembled.
“No,” she said gently. “Too slowly. There’s a difference.”
Tears finally welled in her eyes, not spilling. Just there.
“She didn’t need perfection,” she said. “She needed time.”
Her grip tightened.
“And time,” she whispered, “was taken from all of us.”
The room felt unbearably small.
“I failed her,” I said.
Mrs. Hart shook her head. “We all fail the people we love. That’s the curse of loving.”
She stood abruptly, turning toward the sink.
“I should check on the kettle,” she murmured. “Evie gets fussy if it whistles too long.”
I stayed seated while she busied herself with nothing. After a moment, she spoke again, her back still turned.
“She would have come back to you.”
The words were simple.
Certain.
They broke something in my chest.
I did not answer.
I couldn’t.
Because belief requires worth. And I wasn’t sure I had earned it.
Mrs. Hart nodded to herself, as if my silence were a response enough.
“She always chose her way home,” she said. “No matter how long it took.”
She turned back then, eyes wet but steady.
“You’ll stay a little while,” she said. “Richard likes it when the house isn’t empty.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll stay.”
She smiled faintly and began clearing the table, humming under her breath.
I watched her move through the house like a woman walking through a memory she refused to let fade. I understood then that this wasn’t madness. It was love refusing to update itself to reality.
When I finally stood to leave hours later, she hugged me without warning.
“You’ll tell her I kept her place,” she said.
“I will.”
She stepped back, already drifting. Judy came to take her inside for some rest.
Judy had been there when the days began slipping. I hadn’t ordered her to stay. I hadn’t needed to.
She’d come the moment Evie didn’t. I’d trusted Judy with what I couldn’t fix.
She hadn’t hesitated. Not for a second.
Outside, the sky had darkened.
I stood on the steps of the Hart house for a long time, breathing in the quiet, the loss, the weight of everything that had been loved and misplaced.
Evie was not just my Luna.
She was someone’s daughter.
Someone’s world.
And standing there, in the aftermath of what remained, I understood something with devastating clarity:
If she came back...
...I would have to deserve her twice.