Sometimes the past stays quiet for years—until it suddenly refuses to. When a thin envelope slipped from a dusty attic shelf, it tore open a chapter of my life I was certain had closed forever. Every December, when the sun dipped before five and the same old string lights flickered in the windows like they did when the kids were small, Daphne always drifted back into my thoughts. It wasn’t intentional. She appeared the way the scent of pine does—soft, uninvited, lingering. Thirty-eight years later, she still lived in the corners of Christmas. My name is Merrick. I’m fifty-nine now.…
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