Chapter 23

MAEVE

We walked hand in hand, through the hallway of the estate. My eyes wondered over the off white walls, and the pictures that hung there. So much had changed in such a short space of time that it was difficult to process, I hadn't had time to think, to understand or to grieve.

One picture in particular caught my attention. It was a picture of my mother and I standing in the clearing. The same clearing where my life had been turned upside down, less than a week before now. The memory surrounding the picture was so vivid.

My papa had taken the picture. Mother joking about how this one was definitely going on the wall, how she was always the one behind the camera, catching the memories, she was so happy that she finally got to be in one of the pictures that we could one day look back on and cherish.

I was only 10 at the time, and the bluebells were yet to blossom, the field was bare and the air still crisp from the not long past winter. I was so obsessed with one day finding my wo