Chapter 5 - The Language of Yellow Buttercups
The small brass bell above the door jingled as Damian pushed it open. The workshop fell momentarily quiet; the sudden presence of a six-foot-two man in an expensive tailored coat naturally commanded attention.
Clara looked up, a smile ready for a patron or a community parent. The smile froze. Her eyes dropped to the floor, catching the familiar embroidery of yellow buttercups on a pair of child-sized sneakers, before snapping back up to Lily’s face.
The paintbrush in Clara’s hand clattered to the floor, rolling across the bare pine planks.
""Lily?"" Clara breathed, taking an unsteady step forward. Her voice was cracked, fragile, as if speaking too loudly might dissolve a dream.
Lily pulled her hand away from Damian and ran. There was no hesitation, no aristocratic restraint, no fear. She threw her small arms around Clara’s knees with all the desperate strength of a child who had preserved an invisible thread of memory for years.
""Mommy! You came back from the sky!"" Lily sobbed, burying her face into Clara’s denim apron.
Clara dropped to her knees, heedless of the paint, and pulled the little girl into her chest. She buried her face in Lily’s soft hair, her shoulders shaking violently with silent, deep-seated sobs that had been held back across thirty-six months of exile.
""I never went to the sky, baby,"" Clara whispered, rocking her back and forth. ""I was always here. Always right here.""
Damian stood by the door, his throat constricted. For three years, his house had been immaculate, quiet, and dead. Here, in a messy room filled with paper scraps and cheap tempera paint, life rushed back into his lungs with unbearable weight.
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Clara looked up over Lily’s shoulder. Her eyes met Damian’s. There was no anger in her gaze, only a deep, weary sorrow that asked a single, wordless question: Why now?
""Eleanor threw them in the trash,"" Damian said simply, answering the unspoken query. ""I decided that was the last thing of yours she would ever destroy.""
