For the first time since the divorce, I felt we were making a decision together without trying to win.

ADDITIONAL CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MARGARET’S READING ROOM

The local historical society invited me to view a small collection Margaret had donated before her death.

Her gift included books on regional architecture, photographs of demolished buildings, and minutes from neighborhood preservation meetings.

The society’s volunteer curator, Alan Pierce, emphasized that the donation was unrelated to the police investigation unless investigators established a connection.

I agreed and spent the morning examining building sketches with him.

Margaret had annotated several photographs with dates and the names of people who repaired houses after the great flood.

One picture showed the rear of my property before the modern siding was installed.

The laundry window was plainly visible, and a young tree stood where the enormous willow grew now.

Alan recognized the handwriting on the back of the print as Margaret’s.

He explained that she had been fascinated by how families changed their homes while retaining small features of earlier lives.

I asked whether she had ever mentioned Mara.

Alan remembered a quiet young visitor who helped sort photographs and asked for maps of former industrial roads.

He had assumed she was a student.

Margaret never asked him to hide her visits, but she did request that no visitor names be added to public exhibition labels.

Alan had treated that as an ordinary privacy preference.

A donation form showed that Margaret later transferred two folders of public planning documents to the society.

Neither folder was missing, and both remained available to researchers.

The contents did not establish criminal wrongdoing.

They did help explain why Margaret trusted the historical society as a place where information might survive her.

Before I left, Alan showed me a photograph taken at a community picnic.

Margaret stood beneath the willow beside a little boy holding a folded paper boat.

It was Owen, years before he became an engineer.

For a moment I could see why he remembered the house with affection rather than fear.

I borrowed a book about restoring old windows and promised to return it on time.

The ordinary errand felt like another small step toward belonging in the town.

ADDITIONAL CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE CALL FROM A FORMER NEIGHBOR

An elderly man named Vernon Ellis contacted me after Frances wrote about the hidden film.

He had lived three houses down from Margaret before moving to assisted living in another county.