Chapter Two
The Girl in the Concert Program
Tilda sent the Webb Christmas cards the following morning.
There was a discipline in finishing work no one else had noticed was difficult. Each envelope received its stamp. Each gold seal pressed smoothly beneath her thumb. Each smiling photograph of Tilda and Jeremy went out into Charleston carrying its usual seasonal lie.
Jeremy came into the dining room while she was stacking the final pile.
“You’ve rescued Christmas again,” he said.
“Christmas is resilient.”
“Only because you bully it into order.”
Jeremy helped himself to coffee from the sideboard, although he had never learned to refill the pot.
His manner was lighter than it had been the day before, but lightness could be manufactured.
Tilda had watched clients manufacture it over debts, divorces, and sons who failed out of expensive schools.
“Did Arthur survive his crisis?” she asked.
“Arthur has survived many crises, most of them of his own doing.” Jeremy looked at the sealed envelopes. “Did any more strange cards arrive?”
“No.”
“Good. I hope you aren’t brooding over that nonsense.”
Tilda ran one finger along the edge of an envelope addressed to a judge’s widow. “I don’t brood. You know that.”
Jeremy laughed. “You do many things, darling, but brooding has never been one of them. You prefer solving.”
His phone vibrated on the table. He turned it over before the screen had fully lit.
Tilda saw only the movement. She did not need the name. People betrayed themselves more often by what they hid than by what they revealed.
After Jeremy left for the office, Tilda carried the anonymous card fragment from its hiding place to her desk.
The burned corner sat inside a clean envelope now, blackened at the edges and smelling faintly of smoke.
Claire’s half face remained clear enough.
The teenage girl’s hand lay near Jeremy’s sleeve. The watch was visible.
The message read, “Ask him about Lila.”
The words had kept their shape through the fire.
Tilda opened her laptop and typed Claire Hollis.
The internet was not generous. Claire had arranged herself into absence.
Old charity photographs appeared, each one featuring women in jewel tones beside auction baskets and flower arrangements.
A business directory listed her years ago as office manager at Webb Family Wealth Advisors.
A notice from a Savannah community newsletter mentioned Claire Hollis joining a school parents’ committee.
The word Savannah held on the screen.
Tilda typed Lila Hollis Savannah school Christmas concert.
A private academy website appeared several results down, polite and expensive in the way of institutions that used words like character and excellence without embarrassment.
The page announced a winter concert and charitable toy drive.
Below it, a program had been uploaded as a PDF for visiting families.
Tilda opened it.
Names appeared beneath songs, readings, solo performances, and a closing carol. Near the middle of the second page, under student ushers, sat one line.
The line read, “Lila Hollis, Grade Ten.”
The name did not prove anything. Hollis was not rare. Lila could have been any girl. The watch could have belonged to any man with Jeremy’s taste and Tilda’s former credit card limit.
A link at the bottom led to photographs from rehearsal.
Lila stood near a piano, holding a clipboard and looking slightly annoyed. The photograph was clearer than the Christmas card. Her eyes were dark, her mouth was set in a familiar half-resistant curve, and a small crease showed between her brows.
Jeremy made that face when a waiter brought the wrong wine.
Tilda saved the program, the photograph, and the school page to the Christmas folder. Afterward, she sat while the printer worked beside her, placing each sheet into the world as paper.
A woman who wanted the truth had to be careful not to want it too loudly.
By midday, Tilda had told Marnie Shaw that she might drive out for a little Christmas shopping. Her sister, who had never trusted Jeremy beyond the limits of politeness, responded with a question mark and a request for context. Tilda promised to explain later and put the phone facedown.
The academy outside Savannah sat behind brick pillars and a tasteful sign decorated with fresh greenery.
Tilda parked across the road near a church whose lawn held a wooden nativity scene.
Families moved in and out through the school gates with garment bags, instrument cases, and the weary energy of people assisting children through sanctioned festivity.
Tilda remained in the car with her sunglasses on and the printed program folded in her handbag.
At first, she saw only strangers. A woman in a red coat bent to retie a small boy’s shoe. Two older students carried boxes of canned goods toward a donation table. A man argued amiably with a wreath hanging from the gate, having caught his scarf on it.
A black SUV turned into the school drive.
Jeremy used that vehicle for client visits. Tilda had once asked why he needed both the sedan and the SUV, and he had said that appearances mattered in his work. She had agreed. Now she raised her phone and kept it low near the steering wheel.
Claire emerged from the side entrance with a garment bag over one arm. Behind her came Lila, her dark hair loose around her shoulders and a navy coat hanging open. The girl said something over her shoulder and smiled reluctantly, just enough for Jeremy to appear in her face again.
The SUV door opened.
Jeremy stepped out.
Lila’s expression changed before she moved. The guarded look fell away, replaced by a young brightness Tilda recognized from children who had seen exactly the person they hoped would come. Lila crossed the pavement quickly and put both arms around Jeremy.
“Dad,” she said.
The word reached Tilda through the partly open window.
Jeremy hugged her. His hand came up to the back of her head, familiar and gentle, while Claire stood nearby holding the garment bag and watching them with a private claim in her posture.
Tilda took three photographs and one video.
Jeremy said something to Lila and touched the collar of her coat. Claire answered for the girl, and Jeremy gave her a look Tilda had not seen across their own breakfast table in years. Something easy passed between them. Something practiced.
A van pulled into the space in front of Tilda and blocked the view. She lowered the phone and shifted to look past it. By the time the van moved, Jeremy and Lila were walking toward the school doors.
Claire had turned.
Across the road, behind sunglasses and a windshield, Tilda felt the other woman’s attention land.
Claire did not wave. She did not call out. She started walking toward the street with the garment bag still hooked over one arm.
Tilda put the car in gear.
A mother with children stepped onto the crosswalk between them, forcing Tilda to wait. Claire kept coming. Her face had changed from surprise into decision. Tilda looked straight ahead, although the pulse in her wrist had begun beating hard against the leather strap of her watch.
The children cleared the road.
Tilda eased away from the curb, too quickly for elegance. The car lurched slightly, and one tire brushed the base of a plastic trash bin waiting near the church lawn. The bin tipped, rocked, and settled without falling. A man carrying a cello case looked over.
Tilda drove on.
Two streets later, she turned into a grocery store parking lot and stopped between a minivan and a delivery truck painted with smiling fruit. Her hands remained on the wheel. She checked the mirror. No one had followed her.
The video played clearly when she opened it. Lila’s voice came through, faint but distinct.
The word was Dad.
There was no doubt.
Tilda saved it and sent a copy to the new email account she had created that morning. The subject line read Ornament hooks, because Jeremy had never known where they were and would never search for them.
A message arrived before she could close the app.
The number was blocked.
Stop looking. You already had him long enough.
Tilda stared at the words while people moved in and out of the grocery store carrying wreaths, paper bags, and bunches of red flowers. Someone nearby laughed. A cart rattled over uneven pavement.
The message did one useful thing. It removed the last possibility of mistake.
At home, Tilda placed the printed concert program beneath the burned card fragment. The photographs followed. The video file name went into a notebook she had once used for Christmas menus.
Jeremy returned after dark with a bottle of wine and a story about a client who had confused estate planning with immortality. He asked whether she had mailed the cards.
“Yes,” Tilda said. “Every one.”
“Excellent.” Jeremy kissed her cheek. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Tilda looked toward the mantel, where a row of silver bells reflected the room in curved, distorted pieces.
“I’m beginning to wonder the same thing,” she said.
Jeremy smiled, hearing affection because he had expected it.
After dinner, Tilda went upstairs and opened the Christmas folder. Beneath the burned card, the concert program, and the photographs, she added the blocked message.
Receipt, she wrote beside it.
Downstairs, Jeremy’s voice moved through the hall as he took another call. Tilda could not hear the words clearly, but she could hear the effort he made to sound untroubled.
That, too, she saved.