On Sunday afternoon, a hesitant knock at my door startled me from my journals. I opened it to find Julian in the hallway, looking entirely out of place in my modest building. Beside him, arm in a pristine white cast, was Chloe.
“Dr. Clara!” Chloe beamed, holding up a plastic container with her good hand. “Dad and I baked cookies. Well, Dad burned the first batch, but these ones are good!”
An exhausted laugh escaped before I could stop it. I looked at Julian, who was rubbing the back of his neck, looking mortified and oddly exposed.
“We are attempting to earn our way into your good graces via sugar,” Julian admitted, offering a small, self-deprecating smile. “May we come in?”
Against every instinct I had, I stepped aside. My apartment was small and warm, full of amber lamplight, overflowing bookshelves, and the unmistakable signs of impending motherhood. Chloe immediately found the ultrasound image pinned to my fridge.
“Is that the baby?” she asked, eyes wide. “It looks like a little bean.”
“Getting bigger every day,” I said softly.
Julian watched me, his expression unreadable. He reached into his coat pocket and produced something wrapped in soft velvet. He set it carefully on my kitchen counter.
“I didn’t bring this to buy your forgiveness,” he said quietly, making sure Chloe was occupied with the bookshelf. “I brought it because I wanted you to understand what I’ve been doing since the night you left.”
I folded back the velvet. An intricately carved antique wooden music box. It looked very old, the dark mahogany polished to a high shine, though I could make out the faint, precise lines where shattered wood had been painstakingly fitted back together.
“I found it in an antique shop,” Julian said, his voice low and thick. “It was completely destroyed. Rusted gears, splintered wood. The owner told me it was beyond saving. I spent the last five months taking it apart in my study. I cleaned every gear, replaced the pins, reassembled the wood.”
I looked up at him, my breath catching.
“I’m not a man who knows how to fix things with words, Clara,” he whispered, moving a fraction closer. “I only know how to build. How to reconstruct. So I worked on this. Because I needed to prove to myself that something broken beyond recognition could be made to sing again.”
He reached out and turned the small brass key. A delicate, crystalline melody filled the kitchen — a slow, hauntingly beautiful waltz.
“It’s beautiful,” I managed, around the tightening in my throat.
“It still has scars,” he said, tracing a repaired crack along the lid. “But it plays. That has to count for something.”
Before I could take in the depth of what he had just shown me, my intercom buzzed. I walked over and pressed the button. “Yes?”
“Dr. Clara?” the lobby attendant’s voice crackled. “There is a woman here to see you. She says her name is Victoria.”
Julian went completely still. The warmth left his face at once. “Victoria?”
“Who is Victoria?” I asked, my pulse picking up.
“My ex-wife,” Julian said, his voice contracting.
Five minutes later, my door opened to a striking woman with sharp, intelligent dark eyes, an immaculate trench coat, and the presence of someone who negotiated difficult things before breakfast. She stepped into the apartment, her eyes finding Julian immediately.
“Hello, Julian. I see you finally found your courage, though it took a trip to the ER to excavate it.” She turned to me, her expression warming unexpectedly. “And you must be Clara. Thank you for opening the door. I presume you received the blanket?”
I stared at her. “You sent the gift? How did you even know about me? About the baby?”
“I have my ways,” Victoria said, removing her gloves. “Chloe talks to me every night on FaceTime. She mentioned the ‘pretty doctor who looked very sad’ a few months ago, and Friday night’s ER visit confirmed the rest. I connected the pieces.”
“What are you doing here, Vic?” Julian asked, stepping forward.
