Chapter 107: the woman in the photograph

Chapter 107 — The Woman in the Photograph

Roxanne called her mother during her free period, from the quiet bench behind the library where nobody ever went because the pigeons had claimed it.

Amelia answered on the first ring this time. "Roxanne."

"Who is she?" Roxanne said. "The woman in the photograph. And why has she been asking about me?"

There was a short pause, the kind that comes before a person decides to stop dodging. "Her name is Margaret Silver. She is your father’s older sister. Your aunt."

Roxanne closed her eyes. The name felt strange and a little too familiar, like her own surname spoken by someone else. "Asking how?"

"She wrote to me several times over the years. Cards at first, then letters. Once she telephoned the house." Amelia’s voice was careful. "After the funeral, I never answered any of them."

"Never?"

"Not once. I told myself it would only reopen old grief. And after I married Edward, I told myself it would complicate things for everyone." She swallowed audibly. "I convinced myself I was being sensible."

Roxanne gripped the edge of the bench. The pigeons shuffled away from her, as though they could sense the weather turning. "You didn’t just keep a secret from me," she said. "You decided I didn’t deserve the choice."

"I thought I was protecting you."

"Then why does everyone else’s protection always feel like losing something?"

Amelia didn’t answer. Roxanne let the silence stretch, and it was clear that her mother was searching for a reply and finding none that would not sound like an excuse.

"She lives within travelling distance," Amelia said finally, quietly. "Margaret. She would like to meet you during Visiting Weekend, if you are willing."

"Why would I be?"

"You don’t have to be."

"I barely remember any of Dad’s family. I don’t want to be handed a relationship just because we share a name." Roxanne kept her voice level. "I won’t owe strangers an instant bond."

"She doesn’t expect one. She told me she isn’t looking for forgiveness or for you to be familiar with her. She only wants a chance to meet her niece."

Roxanne watched a leaf spin down from the branch overhead and settle on the path. It would have been easier to refuse. It would have been simple to say no and let the door stay closed, which was exactly what her mother had done for years.

"I’ll meet her," she said. "But I decide what happens afterwards. Not you, and not her."

"Of course," Amelia said, and there was something raw in the way she said it. "That’s entirely fair."

---

The group assignment that afternoon was a map exercise, plotting patrol routes across a diagram of the northern border. Roxanne drew the same line three times and rubbed it out each time.

"You’ve worn a hole in that paper," Tessa said from across the desk.

"Have I?"

"Almost. Has someone upset you?"

Roxanne put her pencil down. She hadn’t meant to say anything, but Tessa’s expression was so plain and unhurried that the words came out anyway. "I found out I have relatives I never knew about. My father’s side. My mother kept them from me. Now one of them wants to meet me, and I don’t know whether it will help anything or make it worse."

Tessa didn’t offer a speech. She tapped her own pencil against the table for a moment.

"My uncle Barnaby has known me my entire life," she said, "and he still introduces me as the quiet one at every gathering. Every single time. Relatives are difficult even when you’ve been stuck with them forever."

Roxanne let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "That doesn’t solve anything."

"No. But at least you won’t be alone being baffled by them."

It was a small thing, and it loosened something in Roxanne’s chest. She picked up her pencil and drew the line properly at last.

---

In the common room that evening, the brothers were comparing their weekends the way other students compared exam marks.

"It never changes," Liam announced from the floor, where he lay with a cushion over his face. "Someone’s aunt will take me aside and ask in a very gentle voice why I can’t take life more seriously. Then someone else will ask the same thing, less gently."

"You could take life more seriously," Lucien said, without looking up from his papers.

"That’s what they all say."

Roshan was folding a sheet of paper into a small, careful square. "I’ve been assigned to help my young cousin with his schoolwork. He’s nine. He believes fractions are a conspiracy."

"He may have a point," said Liam, through the cushion.

Lucien had formal obligations to attend, and said so in the tone of a man reading out a sentence. Kai, lounging near the window, mentioned that he planned to spend part of the weekend away from the official gatherings, and nobody asked him where.

Roxanne listened and found, to her surprise, that she was smiling. They were princes, and they were dreading cousins and aunts and uncomfortable questions over tea, just as everyone else was. Even royal families had awkward relatives. It made them feel less distant, and her own situation less strange.

She wondered whether she should ask one of them to come with her when she met Margaret. The thought sat in her mind for a moment, and she let it sit. She wasn’t ready to decide that yet.

---

Her phone rang after dinner, showing a number she didn’t recognise.

She almost let it ring out. Then she answered.

"Hello? Is this Roxanne?" The voice was older, a little rough, and trying very hard to sound steady. "This is Margaret. Your father’s sister. Your mother gave me the number. I hope that is all right."

"It’s all right," Roxanne said, and sat down on the edge of her bed.

For a few moments neither of them said anything useful. Margaret asked whether it was a bad time. Roxanne said no. Margaret said that she wasn’t sure how these calls were supposed to go, and Roxanne said she wasn’t either, and somehow that helped.

"I won’t pretend we’re close," Margaret said. "I don’t know what your life has been like, and it would be foolish to act as though I did. But I wanted to say I’m sorry I didn’t find a way to reach you directly sooner. I could have done more. I should have done more."

Roxanne hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t expected anyone to simply say it. "Thank you," she said, and found that she meant it, at least a little.

"May I tell you something small?"

"Please."

"Your father made the worst pancakes in the county. Flat as plates, burnt on one side, raw on the other. And he insisted they were an old family recipe." Margaret’s voice warmed. "Our mother would only eat one if he stood over her. We all knew he’d invented them that morning."

Roxanne laughed. The sound burst out of her before she could stop it, and then, abruptly, her eyes stung. She pressed her fingers against her mouth. A small, ordinary memory, and she had never been given it. How many more were there? How many tiny, silly things had been quietly shelved in a drawer, along with the letters?

"Are you all right?" Margaret asked gently.

"I’m fine." She wiped her face. "It’s just a lot."

"I know. I won’t push. But I’d like to bring some of his old things when we meet, if you’d want them. Only if you want them. You needn’t accept anything."

"I’ll think about it."

"That’s all I ask."

Roxanne drew her knees up. "I do want to meet you," she said slowly. "But I don’t want our first meeting to turn into a long talk about everything my mother did wrong. I’m angry with her. I’ll deal with that myself."

"Agreed," Margaret said at once. "We can talk about your father, or about our own lives, or about nothing particularly important at all. I’m very good at nothing important."

Something in Roxanne eased. Margaret hadn’t asked her to forgive or to decide or to feel anything on command. She had simply offered an hour of her company and left the rest alone.

"Roxanne," Margaret said, just before they ended the call. "Do you still like pancakes?"

"I do," Roxanne said. "Though I’ve never been good at making them."

Margaret laughed, a bright, surprised sound. "Then your father would have adored you. He always said someone else ought to be in charge of the cooking."

Roxanne lowered the phone and sat in the quiet room, smiling and crying at once, holding a new memory that belonged to her alone.