Margery let out a sad, hollow chuckle. She looked back toward the dark house.
"For Rowan," Margery said simply. "He has gone through a lot of things to the point I feel guilty. I could not stay away when I knew this was his last chance to set his life right."
Delaney leaned forward slightly. "How so?"
Margery rested her arms on her velvet knees. The cigar smoke curled upward like a gray ribbon.
"His mother died when he was just a lad," Margery began, her voice taking on the soft, distant tone of a storyteller remembering a painful past. "My sister in law. She was the light of this house. When she died, the joy died with her. His father... my brother... he did not handle the grief well."
Margery took a deep breath.
