Chapter 14 - The House Felt Different After Nora Left
A week later, the mansion felt quieter.
Not happier, exactly.
Healing rarely arrives that fast.
But safer.
The difference mattered.
The dining room had been professionally cleaned, yet Daniel could still picture the fizzing cookie fragments on the marble whenever he walked past. Lily avoided the room at first. Then one afternoon she asked if they could eat dinner in there together.
“Just us?”
“Just us.”
So Daniel set two places.
No candles.
No performance.
No tension hidden beneath politeness.
Just a father and daughter sharing grilled cheese and apple slices in the same room where fear had once nearly swallowed them.
Halfway through dinner, Lily looked toward the spot where the plate had shattered.
Then back at him.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Always.”
“I was really scared.”
“I know.”
“I thought if I was too slow, you’d eat it.”
Daniel reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
“You weren’t too slow.”
She stared at him, searching his face the way children do when they need certainty more than comfort.
“Are we okay now?”
He answered carefully.
“We’re getting there.”
That seemed to satisfy her.
Later that night, Daniel removed every trace of Nora from the main floor of the house.
Not because he believed objects held evil.
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But because Lily deserved to wake up in a home that no longer looked like it belonged half to fear.
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