Anne arrived with a small wrapped loaf and quiet eyes. She was in her fifties, measured and unobtrusive. Over cups of tea, she explained she had once worked with Daniel on a local charity project. “We lost touch,” she said, “but he helped my niece get a job once.” There was no melodrama. Hers was the level tone of someone who had been asked to prove nothing.
Maggie listened, relief twisting into shame. She had imagined a rival in Anne’s measure, a woman at the center of a secret life. The truth was less dramatic, more ordinary. But the shadow of suspicion the town had laid over Daniel’s memory would not be so easily brushed aside.