Chapter 26

 What Margaret Knows

I read Julian's message three times before the words fully register, my grip tightening on the phone as the car rolls to a stop in front of the house.

"What is it now." My father's voice carries the weary caution of a man who's learned to brace for the worst every time my phone buzzes.

I turn the screen toward him wordlessly, watching his face shift from confusion to something darker as he reads Julian's text.

"Margaret." His voice comes out low. "Eleanor's sister has known the truth about Sarah Chen this entire time?"

"That's what Julian's message says." I'm already typing a reply, my hands unsteady. "I need to call him."

Julian answers on the first ring, his voice tight with the same disbelief written across my father's face. "Detective Reyes just got off the phone with Sarah Chen directly. She was very specific. She won't talk without Margaret present, and when Reyes pushed for a reason, Sarah said, and I'm quoting her exactly, 'Margaret has spent twenty years keeping my secret. She deserves to be the one who finally lets it go.'"

"Does Noah know?" My chest tightens at the thought of him hearing this secondhand.

"I called him right after I called you. He's reaching out to Margaret now." Julian's voice softens slightly. "Amara, are you sure you want to be in that room for this? Nobody would blame you for letting the detective handle the interview alone and briefing you after."

"I need to hear it myself." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I've spent enough of my life having the truth filtered through other people's versions of it. Whatever this is, I want it directly from the source."

Two days pass before the interview can be arranged, two days of restless nights and half finished conversations with my father, both of us circling the same unanswerable questions without ever quite landing on anything solid. By the time we arrive at the precinct, a small conference room has been prepared, softer lighting than the sterile space from before, water glasses set out like someone anticipated exactly how much this conversation might require.

Margaret is already seated when we walk in, her silver hair perfectly composed as always, though her hands are folded tightly in her lap in a way that betrays more nerves than I've ever seen from her. Beside her sits a woman I don't recognize, silver threaded through dark hair, lines around her eyes that speak of years spent carrying something heavy. She looks up as we enter, and something in her expression shifts, recognition and grief tangled together.

"Amara." Her voice is soft, careful. "You look so much like her. Like your mother, I mean."

"You're Sarah." I take the seat across from her, my father settling beside me, Noah and Margaret positioned at the far end of the table, Detective Reyes and a recorder set up discreetly near the door.

"I am." Sarah's hands twist together on the table. "I worked for your mother for three years before I left the Montgomery household. I don't know how much your father has told you about that time."

"Almost nothing," my father says quietly. "I never asked the right questions. I regret that more than I can say."

Sarah nods slowly, and for a long moment she simply breathes, gathering whatever courage she needs to finally speak. "Your mother and I were close. Closer than most employers and their staff. When things grew difficult between her and Richard, she came to stay with a friend of mine, someone I trusted, while she figured out what she wanted."

"Eleanor Frost." I say the name before Sarah has to.

"Yes." Sarah's eyes flick briefly to Margaret, who nods once, encouraging her to continue. "During that time, I became involved with someone I shouldn't have. It's not relevant to any of this, except that I found out I was pregnant shortly after your mother returned home to your father. I panicked. I was young, unmarried, and terrified of what it would mean for my future if the truth came out about who the father was."

"Who was the father." Noah's voice is quiet, careful.

Sarah's eyes lift to meet his, and something in her expression makes my stomach drop before she even answers.

"Robert Frost." Her voice barely rises above a whisper. "Your father, Noah. We were involved for several months during the same period your parents were struggling in their own marriage."

The room falls utterly silent. Noah's face has gone rigid, his jaw locked tight, and beside him Margaret reaches over to grip his hand, her own eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"I never told anyone who the father truly was." Sarah continues, her voice steadier now that the worst of it is out. "Eleanor found out anyway, somehow, and rather than exposing the affair publicly, she offered to help me. She arranged for the adoption to happen quietly, found a family she trusted completely to raise the child as their own, someone discreet, someone far removed from either of our social circles."

"Isabella." I say the name slowly, pieces beginning to shift into place. "Eleanor placed your daughter with Isabella."

"Eleanor knew Isabella from years earlier, before she and Noah were ever involved as young adults themselves." Sarah's hands tremble as she reaches for the water glass in front of her. "She thought Isabella would raise the child quietly, far from the family, in exchange for a generous settlement. She had no idea Isabella would use that child as a weapon decades later, or that she'd ever resurface in Noah's life at all."

I sit back slowly, my mind reeling through the implications. "So Ivy is Robert Frost's biological granddaughter, through you and him. Which means."

"Ivy is my half sister." Noah's voice is hollow, disbelieving. "Not through Isabella. Through my father."

The weight of it settles over the room like something physical, decades of secrets finally cracking open all at once, and I realize, watching Noah's stunned expression across the table, that whatever comes next, Isabella's carefully constructed lies were built on top of an older truth far more complicated than any of us ever imagined.