Chapter 63: I Never Touched Them

Chapter 63: I Never Touched Them
Samantha's POV

The warm night air wrapped around us on the front steps, but something had shifted in Catherine's demeanor. Her carefully maintained smile flickered, and I caught the nervous way her fingers smoothed the fabric of that deep blue dress.

"Samantha..." Her voice carried a softness I'd never heard before. "Could you come with me for a moment?"

I studied her face in the porch light. The woman who'd spent my teenage years making me feel like an unwelcome guest was now fidgeting like she was working up courage for something difficult.

"What's wrong?"

"I want to show you your room." She avoided my gaze, looking toward the second floor windows instead. "Not the one you had when you were little. Your new room. The one that's yours now."

My eyebrows rose. In all my years in this house, Catherine had never described anything as "mine." The concept simply didn't exist in her vocabulary when it came to me. Four years ago when I left for the Academy, she'd barely contained her relief to see me go. Now she was talking about rooms being mine?

"Okay," I said, keeping my tone neutral.

Relief flickered across her features, though the nervousness remained. She turned toward the door with quick, decisive movements, like someone about to do something they might regret.

Inside, the house felt different at night. Tyler's laughter echoed faintly from wherever he and Matthew had disappeared to, mixing with lingering dinner aromas. Catherine led me up the staircase, her footsteps rushed as if she wanted to finish this before losing her nerve.

The hallway looked brighter than I remembered. New family photos lined the walls, mostly Tyler's college graduation and some recent pictures of him with Sarah and me. But Catherine's body language reminded me of those rare childhood moments when I'd done something wrong and was working up courage to apologize. Except Catherine had never apologized to me. Not once.

She stopped in front of what used to be Tyler's old playroom, her hand gripping the doorknob without turning it. She took a deep breath, like someone preparing to jump.

"Catherine?"

She pushed open the door.

My breath caught.

The room was beautiful. Not just cleaned up, but completely transformed. Warm cream walls caught the lamplight perfectly. Dark wood furniture gave it an sophisticated feel that matched my adult tastes rather than teenage memories. A proper desk sat by the window, built-in bookshelves lined one wall, and there was even a reading nook with a comfortable chair and soft pillows.

But the details made my knees weak.

My high school honor roll certificates, carefully framed on one wall. The detective novels I'd devoured as a teenager, arranged by author on the bookshelf. My favorite fountain pen from senior year sitting on the desk like I'd just set it down yesterday.

When I left, I hadn't taken any of these things. I'd assumed she threw them away the moment I was gone, erased every trace of me like I'd never existed. But she'd kept them. She'd kept everything and created this sanctuary.

"I know you probably won't stay here often," Catherine said, her voice getting smaller with each word. "But I thought maybe sometimes you'd need a place..."

She trailed off, uncertainty making her fidget with her dress.

I walked deeper into the room, touching the spine of an Agatha Christie novel, running my fingers over the desk surface. Everything was exactly as I would have chosen it, if I'd ever dared to hope for such a thing.

She'd moved to the far corner where a large wooden chest sat. Her hands rested on its lid with reverent care, like touching something precious and fragile.

"These are your parents' things," she said quietly. "I've been keeping them safe. I always thought maybe someday you'd come back and want to see them."

My heart nearly stopped. "My parents' things?"

"I know I wasn't kind to you before." Her voice began to shake. "I know I made mistakes. But these..." She looked down at the chest, her fingers tracing the wood grain. "I never touched them. Not once in twenty-two years."

The raw honesty hit me like a physical blow. This woman, who I'd believed resented everything about me, had been the guardian of my parents' memories all this time. Twenty-two years of carrying that burden, waiting for me to be ready.

"You kept everything?"

She nodded, tears glittering. "Everything. I couldn't throw away the last pieces of Rachel and David. No matter how angry I was, no matter how much it hurt to look at them."

The vulnerability in her voice was unlike anything I'd ever heard from her. This wasn't the sharp-tongued woman who'd raised me with dutiful coldness. This was someone carrying grief and guilt she'd never let me see.

"I'll leave you alone with them," she said suddenly, moving toward the door like she was fleeing. "Take all the time you need. They're yours now."

The door clicked shut, leaving me alone with the beautiful room and the mysterious chest.

I stood in the center of the space, overwhelmed by contradictions. The Catherine who'd made me feel unwelcome had created this sanctuary. The woman who'd resented my presence had lovingly preserved every small thing that mattered to me. In my first life, I'd died without ever having a room like this, without knowing someone cared enough to keep my things safe.

Slowly, I approached the wooden chest and knelt beside it. My hands trembled as I touched the brass clasps. This wasn't just opening a container. This was opening a door to the past I'd been too young to understand when it was taken from me.

The first clasp gave way with a soft click. Then the second.

I lifted the lid, and twenty-two years of carefully preserved memories rose to meet me.

The top layer held things I remembered. My father's wire-framed reading glasses, my mother's small jewelry box that played a tinkling melody when opened, several academic journals with their names on the subscription labels. Family photographs showed us at various stages of my early childhood. My father's gentle smile, my mother's luminous laugh, my own gap-toothed grin as a six-year-old.

Everything looked exactly right. Dad in his study with books scattered around, Mom in her white lab coat at what appeared to be some kind of research facility. The mementos they'd supposedly brought back from archaeological expeditions.

They looked exactly like the parents I remembered. Serious academics devoted to their research, bringing me small treasures from distant places. But something about these memories felt strange now, like they belonged to someone else's life.

I worked through the layers methodically, reacquainting myself with forgotten pieces of childhood. But as I neared the bottom, something felt wrong. The wooden base didn't sit flush. There was a slight warp suggesting a hidden compartment.

My pulse quickened as I carefully removed the remaining items and found the concealed space. Inside was a manila folder, its edges worn with age but contents carefully preserved.

With shaking hands, I opened it.

The newspaper clippings and photocopied documents inside made my blood run cold. Not because they were sinister, but because they were completely outside the narrative I'd grown up believing.

Parker Family Pharmaceuticals. Article after article about corporate restructuring, research developments, personnel changes. And there, in a group photograph that must have been taken over twenty years ago, were two faces I recognized.

My father and mother, standing among a group of men in expensive suits, their expressions professional.

The room seemed to tilt around me as I stared at the evidence in my hands. Everything I'd believed about my parents' careers, their deaths, the story I'd built my entire identity around.

My parents weren't archaeologists?

I gripped the photograph tighter, my mind reeling as I tried to process the implications.

My legs carried me downstairs before my brain caught up. The photograph felt like it was burning through my fingers as I clutched it against my chest. Normal sounds drifted from the living room—Matthew's voice, Tyler laughing—but they felt miles away.

I headed straight for the kitchen.

"Catherine!"

The word tore out of me, sharp and desperate. It echoed off the walls loud enough to cut through whatever peace this house had managed to find tonight.

Catherine stood at the sink with her back to me, washing dinner dishes. That deep blue dress made her look elegant even doing mundane work, but when she heard my voice, her whole body went rigid. A plate slipped from her hands, clattering against the sink.

"Samantha?" She spun around, water dripping from her fingers onto the floor. "You look awful. What happened?"

Her face went white when she saw my expression. She took an unconscious step back.

I thrust the photograph toward her with shaking hands. "Did you know? Did you know what my parents really did?"

Catherine stared at me, then at the photo. She grabbed a dish towel, wiping her hands quickly before reaching out like she was handling a bomb.

"What are you talking about? They were archaeologists."

But the moment she looked at the image, her words died. I watched her face change. Confusion turned to something that looked almost like recognition, then shock that matched my own.

"Parker Family Pharmaceuticals," I said. "Ever heard of it?"