“What kind of girls are they?”
Louisa didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t stop herself. One face after another stared back at her—so young, so innocent. A whole wall of delicate, wide-eyed girls, like a garden of fragile little flowers.
“No… No, that can’t be!”
She shook her head, desperate to deny what she was seeing. “They have to be Dad’s illegitimate daughters or something, right? Wiona, your photo must be here too! Dad told me there were pictures of Grandma and everyone else in here. These are just his memories. He probably just hid some old affairs among them…”
But then Louisa’s words trailed off.
She’d indeed spotted Wiona’s face.
On the far left wall, almost a third of the space was filled with photos of Wiona.
Wiona stepped forward and pulled one down.
It was from when she was thirteen.
She remembered that year. She became suddenly famous after a big art competition, secretly taken in as Bronwen’s student. She’d snuck out under the excuse of extra tutoring, just to go paint in Bronwen’s studio. Sometimes she’d even visit Bronwen and Wilson’s house.
Her face in the photo was soft and dewy, like a flower just about to bloom. She would get lost in her painting for hours, head down, everything else forgotten.
She didn’t even remember these moments.
If she was sure of anything, it was that she’d never noticed anyone taking these photos. They must have been taken in secret.
And the angles… they were all wrong, all too intimate.
A bead of sweat on her nose. Strands of hair stuck to her damp temples. The way her body looked, still awkward and not yet grown up.
Sometimes she’d thought she was alone in the studio, peeling off her jacket in the summer heat, left in just a camisole. There were photos of her smiling, frowning, daydreaming with her chin in her hand. Each one looked almost artistic, but something about them made her skin crawl.
It didn’t take long for Wiona to figure out what was so wrong.
It was the way she’d been seen—the way Wilson had watched her. Every photo was a stolen glimpse through a lens that was anything but innocent. Even if you weren’t a man, even if you were just a regular person, you could tell right away. Something was off.
She found a photo of Mary and dropped it in front of Louisa.
“Do you know this girl? Her name is Mary. She grew up at Hope Children’s Home. Your dad used the excuse of sponsoring her to get close. She vanished in high school—never went back to the orphanage. She’s only twenty-four now, but her daughter’s already six. How old was she when she had her baby? Eighteen. So how old was she when she got pregnant? Louisa, think! And look at this one—see the date? Twenty-two years ago! How old were you? Five?”
“Do you really remember nothing? After your parents got married, your mom opened a piano school for your dad. Five years later, it closed down. Do you know why? Because your dad was molesting underage girls, even little kids. Only Wilson knows how many horrible things he did. I don’t know how he fooled the Wilkins family or your mom, but the evidence is right there. The Wilkins family nearly lost everything bailing him out. These photos are proof of what he did—proof he kept for himself.”
“And you really think that woman who brought the sixteen-year-old girl to your dad on New Year’s was his lover? Is that what you think?”
Wiona’s words slammed into Louisa, each one sharper than the last. Every sentence felt like a needle in her chest, or a whip across her back. Louisa shook all over. She wasn’t hurt, but she felt pain everywhere.
She refused to believe it.
She couldn’t.
She wouldn’t.
“No, it’s not true… It’s not!” Her voice cracked. “It’s all lies! You’re lying! My dad would never do this, never! You made this all up, didn’t you, Wiona? I wasn’t here, and this is all some setup, just to ruin my dad’s image, isn’t it?”

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