The phone rang just after nine that evening.
She grabbed it from her nightstand, expecting Ginger or maybe Flora checking in on her. Instead, Victor’s name glowed on the screen.
Her heart stuttered.
“Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” His voice was low, concerned.
“No. I was reading.” She settled back against the pillows, suddenly aware that she was wearing an old maternity nightgown and her hair was in a messy bun. Not that he could see her. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. I just—” A pause. “I wanted to hear your voice.”
The confession made her chest tight. “Oh.”
“I’ve been reading the journal.”
“And?”
“And I think I owe my great-grandfather an apology. For assuming his relationship with his Hyde was the same as my father’s.” He sounded thoughtful “There are entries about learning to listen. About integration instead of suppression. About treating the guardian as a partner rather than a threat.”
She curled onto her side, the phone pressed to her ear. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
“It’s terrifying.” A soft huff that might have been a laugh. “Everything I learned from my father contradicts what Thaddeus wrote. And if he was right—if integration is possible—then I’ve spent twenty years doing everything wrong.”
“Or you’ve spent twenty years learning control, which might be exactly what you needed to learn first.” She thought about the way he held her. The careful strength in his hands even when Hyde was close to the surface. “Maybe you had to master suppression before you could risk integration.”
Silence on the other end before he said quietly, “That’s… an interesting perspective.”
“I’m full of interesting perspectives. Comes from being a librarian.”
“Archivist.”
“Same skillset.” She smiled at the gentle correction. “Tell me more about what the journal says.”
And he did. His voice flowed over her in the darkness, reading passages from his great-grandfather’s careful script. Stories about Hyde emerging to save lives. Accounts of learning to recognize the guardian’s protective instincts versus actualthreats. Observations about how love made control easier, not harder, because it gave the Hyde something worth protecting.
She listened, asking occasional questions, offering observations. The conversation meandered from the journal to other things—his day at the clinic, her progress in the archives, the reference she’d found to her ancestor delivering twins during a blizzard.
“You’re related to Clara Bennington?” He sounded surprised. “She was a legend. Saved half the town during the influenza epidemic of 1918.”
“Really?” She felt a warm glow of pride. “The records just said she was a midwife.”
“The records undersell her significantly. She worked herself to exhaustion during that epidemic, treating humans and Others without distinction. There’s a plaque in the historical society with her name on it.”
“I had no idea.” She thought about the brief mention in the journal—C. Bennington departed for Boston—and wondered what had driven her ancestor to leave. “I wonder why she left.”
“Probably the same reason most people left in those days. Opportunity. Adventure.” He paused. “Or maybe she fell in love with someone who couldn’t stay.”
The wistfulness in his tone made her chest ache. “You’re a romantic.”
“I’m a realist who occasionally reads poetry.” A smile in his voice. “There’s a difference.”
“What kind of poetry?”
“Whatever’s on hand. Petal keeps leaving books in the clinic. Romance novels, mostly, but occasionally there’s a poetry collection mixed in.”
She laughed, delighted by the image of stern, controlled Victor reading romance novels between patients. “And? Do you like them?”
