Chapter 7 - The Music Box in the Attic
On a rainy Sunday afternoon in late April, while the twins were napping peacefully in their nursery, Daniel found Elise in the penthouse’s third-floor storage annex—a quiet, dusty room where Rebecca’s personal belongings had been sealed away in wooden crates.
She was sitting on a low ottoman near the window, holding an ornate, hand-carved music box made of polished walnut and inlaid mother-of-pearl.
She looked up, startled, as Daniel’s shadow fell across the doorway. She immediately attempted to set the box back into the open cedar chest. "I'm sorry, Daniel. I was looking for the girls' summer clothes from last year, and the trunk was unlatched—"
"Don't put it away," Daniel said, stepping into the room.
He walked over to the chest and sat down on an adjacent wooden crate. The room smelled of aged cedar, dried lavender, and old paper. For months, this room had been a forbidden tomb, a place Daniel avoided because the physical weight of Rebecca’s memory was too sharp to bear.
Now, looking at the music box in Elise’s hands, the pain felt different. It was no longer a jagged, open wound; it was a scar—dull, aching, but healed enough to touch.
"Her father gave her that," Daniel murmured. "When she turned eighteen. It plays a Brahms lullaby."
Elise ran her thumb over the delicate mother-of-pearl inlay. "It’s beautiful. I didn't mean to pry."
"You weren't prying," he said gently. He looked at her profile—the soft curve of her cheek, the quiet intelligence in her eyes, the grace that seemed to effortlessly steady everything it touched. "You never ask about her."
"It wasn't my place," Elise replied, looking down at the box. "My job was to love the girls. Loving them meant respecting the space she left behind."
"She would have liked you," Daniel said, the words slipping out before he could evaluate their weight.
Elise turned to look at him, surprised. "Do you really think so?"
"I know so," Daniel smiled faintly, a genuine, bittersweet warmth reaching his eyes. "Rebecca hated pretension. She hated people who followed rules simply because they were written down. She would have found the yellow kitchen gloves completely brilliant."
Elise laughed softly, the sound ringing musical against the quiet rafters of the attic. "She must have been extraordinary."
"She was," Daniel acknowledged honestly. "She had a fierce, terrifying light. When she died, I thought the entire world had gone dark permanently. I thought the only way to survive was to turn myself into concrete." He paused, leaning forward, his eyes locking onto hers with an intensity that made the air between them catch fire. "I didn't think anyone could bring the light back."
Elise’s breath hitched in her throat. The distance between them seemed to dissolve, the silence of the storage room charged with an unspoken, dangerous truth.
"Daniel..." she whispered, her voice trembling.
"You brought it back, Elise," he said, his voice dropping into a rough, intimate register. "Not just for Maisie and Rosie. For me."
Before she could answer, the electronic baby monitor resting on the cedar chest crackled to life.
A loud, demanding thump echoed from the speaker, followed by Maisie’s clear, indignant voice: "Ba-na-na!"
Elise blinked, a startled chuckle breaking through the tension, and pressed her hand against her mouth.
May you like
Daniel shook his head, a wide, helpless grin spreading across his face as he stood up, offering his hand to help her off the low ottoman. "It appears our board of directors has concluded their executive recess."
Elise took his hand. Her fingers were warm, soft, and small inside his large palm, but her grip was firm, lingering for a beat longer than necessary before she stepped past him toward the stairs.
