Mrs. Callahan's POV
The house had never felt so quiet.
Quiet was normal here— after all, I lived alone, and silence was a companion I had long made peace with. But tonight it was different. Tonight, silence seemed heavier, like the walls themselves were holding their breath.
There was a girl asleep in my spare room.
At least, I hoped she was asleep.
I'd checked on her after she came out of the bath, after she had eaten the soup I made. She had thanked me in a whisper, her eyes too hollow for someone so young. Then she'd curled into the quilt like a child trying to hide from the world. I had switched off the light for her, closed the door softly, and left her there.
But hours later, as the clock ticked toward midnight, I was awake and I found myself wandering down the hallway, a mug of tea cooling in my hands.
I do not usually meddle in strangers' lives. At my age, you learn not to— life is just simpler when you mind your own business. But something about her— about the way her voice cracked when she swore she had not run, about the way her eyes looked haunted— stirred something in me I had not felt in years.
I paused outside the door and listened. Faint sounds came through. Not movement exactly, but a broken rhythm, like muffled sobs swallowed into a pillow. My chest ached.
Poor child.
I pushed the door open just a crack. The moonlight spilled in through the thin curtains, silvering the small room. She was curled up tightly on the bed, quilt pulled to her chin, face turned toward the wall. Her shoulders trembled every so often, even though she wasn't making a sound.
I closed the door again gently, my throat tight.
Back in the kitchen, I set the untouched tea down and rubbed at my eyes.
What on earth had I brought into my house tonight?
I did not need the news to tell me who she was— the way she froze when the radio announced her name, the way her whole body shook when her mother's voice poured poison through the speakers. I knew then. Even before she admitted it, I knew.
Tracy Alcott.
An heiress. A name bigger than mine, bigger than most people's. A girl whose face the world claimed it had never seen.
And yet, here she was— in my nightgown, under my quilt, crying into my pillow.
I should have been afraid. The sensible thing would have been to call someone. The police, the family, somebody. People like me didn't mix with people like her, not unless trouble followed close behind.
But when I looked at her, I didn't see an Alcott. I did not see money, or scandal, or power. I saw a girl who had been through hell and still had mud on her cheeks to prove it.
And I remembered my own daughter, years ago.
I lost her too soon. She was just a toddler when she got sick, and no amount of soup or warm quilts or motherly prayers could keep her here. I buried her on a rainy day, and I have been living with that emptiness ever since. Thinking about it now, I could almost hear her voice...
Maybe that's why I could not turn Tracy away tonight. Maybe that's why, when she looked at me with those hollow eyes, I thought— I can't save my own daughter, but maybe I can shelter someone else's.
I sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. The tea was stone cold now, but I didn't care. I just sat there, listening to the creaks of the house, the faint drip of rain from the gutters outside, and the soft, broken sounds of a stranger crying down the hall.
She said they lied about her. And I believed her. I didn't know why, but I did. Maybe because lies sound smooth, but truth has cracks in it. Her words were cracked all over.
Still, I could not pretend I didn't wonder what would come next. What if someone came looking for her? What if her family found out she was here? What if I woke up tomorrow and realized I had invited chaos into my life?
But then I thought about the way she held the spoon tonight, her hand shaking, forcing each bite down even though the taste broke her heart. That was not the hand of a thief. That was the hand of someone holding on by a thread.
I whispered to the empty kitchen, as though she could hear me through the walls:
"You are safe here. For tonight at least, you are safe."
The words didn't make my worries vanish, but they settled something in me.
When I finally got up to head to my own room, I stopped by her door once more. I did not open it this time. I just rested my hand lightly against the wood, the way I used to when my daughter was very young and I wanted to make sure she was breathing inside.
Then I walked away, the house still quiet, but no longer quite so empty.
For the first time in a long while, I did not feel alone.