When the hearing ended, Margaret approached her in the courthouse corridor.

Her posture was straight, but she no longer spoke with the effortless certainty Clara remembered.

“I have wanted to explain,” she began.

Clara waited.

“I was afraid my son would forget me.

His wife died, and I thought I could hold the family together.

Then you came into Idan’s life and he loved you.

I believed I was losing them.”