She had imagined crying.
Embracing her.
Calling her daughter.
But now she understood that Anna did not know her.
Love could not demand recognition.
So Mave simply said, “Hello.”
Anna stared.
“Hello.”
“My name is Mave.”
The girl frowned.
“Mother Agnes said your name was Maeve.”
Mave laughed through tears.
“I suppose it is.”
Anna noticed her wrist.
Mave’s sleeve had slipped upward.
The girl’s expression changed.
She held out her own arm.
Around her wrist hung a thin leather cord.
Attached to it was a tiny silver object.
An engraved button.
An anchor.
Mave stopped breathing.
Her hand flew toward her sewing box, which she had brought inside with her belongings.
She opened it.
Her own silver button lay inside.
Matching.
Caleb whispered, “My old coat.”
Mave looked at him.
He was crying again.
“The winter Anna was born,” he said, “Maeve hated my navy coat. Said the buttons were too fancy.”
A memory opened completely.
Not a fragment.
Not a flash.
A whole morning.
She was sitting beside a fire with newborn Anna against her breast while Caleb repaired his coat.
One button fell.
Maeve laughed and took it.
“One for me,” she had said.
Then she had tugged another loose.
“And one for Anna, so we can always find our way home.”
Caleb had laughed.
“You just ruined my coat.”
“You married me anyway.”
Mave gasped.
The memory was so alive she could smell woodsmoke.
Anna backed away, frightened by her expression.
Mave steadied herself.
“I’m sorry.”
Anna touched the button.
“Why are you crying?”
Mave looked at Caleb.
Then at her daughter.
“Because I once knew someone who had one exactly like yours.”
Anna thought about that.
Then she stepped closer.
Not into Mave’s arms.
Not yet.
But closer.
It was enough.
Silas Lark went to prison before winter.
The signed contract he had greedily accepted became one of the strongest pieces of evidence against him.
It proved he had knowingly attempted to sell authority over a woman whose identity he had concealed.
Doctor Hollis testified.
Old financial ledgers showed the Larks had transferred parts of Maeve’s inherited Avery acreage into Hiram Lark’s name using forged documents.
The attack could not be prosecuted against Hiram, because death had taken him beyond earthly judgment.
But Silas had participated in concealing Maeve’s identity afterward.
That was enough.
Edna confessed to everything.
The court showed her mercy for saving Anna’s life.
Mave did not.
There are acts that deserve understanding without deserving forgiveness.
She visited Edna once before sentencing.
The older woman looked smaller behind the jail bars.
“I did love you,” Edna whispered.
Mave considered that.
“No.”
Edna flinched.
“You loved having my forgiveness available to you.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither were seven stolen years.”
Mave turned away.
Edna called after her.
“Will you ever forgive me?”
Mave stopped.
For years she had believed forgiveness meant returning to the person who hurt you and relieving them of guilt.
She knew better now.
“I hope someday I can remember you without hating you.”
Edna began crying.
“That is all I can promise.”
