Clare approached quietly.
Her father looked up, eyes uncertain. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I couldn’t,” she said. “Orders.”
He nodded once, the kind of nod that carried both apology and pride. “They said you left.”
“They were wrong.”
Evelyn tried to recover her voice. “You could have told us. People were asking—”
Clare turned to her. “You told them.”
Evelyn’s mouth opened, then closed.
“I didn’t need to correct you,” Clare continued. “The truth has a way of arriving on its own.”
She left before Evelyn could answer.
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