Chapter 53

• "Auntie, you’re the closest person she has,” he said gently, yet with quiet urgency. “She’s already suffered enough without her father. She’s been crying the entire time you shut her out, thinking you don’t want her anymore. Please… give her a chance. Hear her out.”
• Outside the door, Naomi stood frozen, her fingers clenched tightly into the fabric of her dress. She couldn’t hear everything clearly—only fragments of low voices drifting through the wood—but her heart pounded as though each word were being carved directly into it.
• Her mother wasn’t speaking to her.