Chapter 15 - THE HOUSE WITH UNLOCKED DOORS
Amelia did not return immediately to the Blackwood mansion.
The size frightened her.
Long corridors reminded her of medical facilities.
Locked doors triggered panic.
Ethan rented a smaller house near the coast.
It had low ceilings, uneven wooden floors, and a kitchen overlooking the water.
Lily chose the room beside theirs.
For the first month, she slept with the door open.
Amelia slept with the light on.
Ethan woke whenever either moved.
They were a family.
They were also three people learning one another after years of lies.
Lily sometimes called Nora in her dreams.
Amelia sometimes flinched when Ethan touched her without warning.
Ethan sometimes stood beside the bed checking that both were breathing.
Dr. Helen Ward began family therapy.
She told them reunion did not restore missing time automatically.
They had to build relationships in the present.
Ethan learned Lily hated peas, loved astronomy, and could identify every servant passage in the mansion.
Amelia learned Ethan no longer drank tea.
Lily learned her mother’s voice grew stronger when she sang.
One evening, Amelia prepared chamomile.
Ethan stared at the cup.
She noticed.
“You do not have to drink it.”
He sat at the kitchen table.
“I know.”
Lily brought a testing strip from Dr. Hayes’s safety kit.
She dipped it dramatically.
“Not poisoned.”
Amelia laughed.
Ethan did too.
Then he drank.
It was a small moment.
No cameras.
No board votes.
No billion-dollar trust.
May you like
Only tea inside a house with unlocked doors.
That became the kind of wealth Ethan wanted.
