Chương 12
Arthur stopped breathing.
“What?”
Eleanor was crying.
“She’s alive.”
Arthur stood so abruptly the chair rolled backward.
“Where?”
“Maine.”
“Who found her?”
“Federal investigators. They matched one of Vanessa’s old aliases to a woman who renewed a nursing license under another name.”
Arthur pressed the phone harder against his ear.
“Have they confirmed?”
“Fingerprints.”
He gripped the table.
“Is she—”
Alive, he almost asked, despite the fact that Eleanor had just said so.
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does she know about Ethan?”
Silence.
“Eleanor.”
“She thought he was dead.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
The room disappeared.
“What?”
“Vanessa told Margaret the baby died after they were separated.”
Arthur sat slowly.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He did.
Or at least he could imagine.
Control.
Fear.
Self-preservation.
The same miserable ingredients in different proportions.
“Does Margaret know he’s alive now?”
“Yes.”
Arthur looked through the glass wall toward the living room.
Ethan sat on the floor with Caroline building a tower from wooden blocks.
“Is she coming?”
Eleanor took a breath.
“She hasn’t decided.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Of course.
People did not return from six years of hiding because a story needed its reunion.
He went into the living room.
Caroline looked up.
She saw his face.
“What?”
Arthur looked at Ethan.
The boy added another block to the tower.
“Ethan.”
He looked up.
“We found your mom.”
The block slipped from his fingers.
Caroline covered her mouth.
Ethan stared at Arthur.
“My real mom?”
Arthur nodded.
“Margaret?”
“Yes.”
“Is she dead?”
“No.”
The room became very quiet.
Ethan stood.
He did not run to Arthur.
He did not smile.
He stood beside the unfinished tower and asked, “Where?”
“Maine.”
“Where’s that?”
“Far east.”
“Is she coming?”
Arthur swallowed.
“She’s thinking about it.”
Ethan’s face changed.
“Why?”
“She’s had a lot happen.”
“Does she know me?”
“She knows about you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Arthur stared.
“No,” he said. “She doesn’t know you yet.”
Ethan looked at the floor.
Caroline started toward him.
He stepped away.
“I want to finish this.”
She stopped.
“Okay.”
He sat.
Put one block on another.
His hands shook.
Arthur wanted to kneel beside him.
Wanted to explain.
Wanted to call Margaret immediately, demand that she come, demand that she understand what her absence was doing.
He heard the letter in his head.
Do not make every danger into a reason to choose his life for him.
Arthur sat on the couch instead.
Ethan built the tower.
It fell twice.
He rebuilt it.
Forty minutes later he climbed into Arthur’s lap without speaking.
Arthur held him.
Neither mentioned Margaret again that night.
Margaret agreed to a video call two days later.
Only Ethan at first.
A child psychologist recommended keeping the meeting short and allowing Ethan to end it whenever he wished.
Arthur hated the idea of professionals choreographing something so personal.
He followed their advice.
Ethan sat at the kitchen table with a laptop.
Arthur waited in the next room.
The call connected.
He heard a woman say, “Hi.”
Arthur’s body reacted before his mind did.
Margaret.
Older.
Lower voice.
But Margaret.
Ethan said nothing.
Neither did she.
Arthur stood in the doorway where Ethan could see him but the camera could not.
Margaret tried again.
“Hi, Ethan.”
“Hi.”
“I’m Margaret.”
“I know.”
A pause.
“I guess that sounded stupid.”
Ethan shrugged.
“It’s okay.”
Another pause.
Margaret laughed softly.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
Ethan looked toward Arthur.
Arthur did nothing.
Ethan looked back.
“Grandpa says adults don’t know stuff a lot.”
Margaret laughed again.
“That sounds like him.”
“You know Grandpa?”
“I do.”
“He complains about coffee.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Margaret said, “He has done that his entire life.”
Ethan smiled.
The conversation lasted nine minutes.
They talked about Maine.
Snow.
Dinosaurs.
Ethan’s school.
Margaret asked whether he liked reading.
He said sometimes.
He asked whether she had a dog.
She did.
A mutt named Walter.
At minute seven Ethan asked, “Why didn’t you come get me?”
Arthur’s hand tightened around the doorframe.
Margaret went quiet.
When she answered, her voice broke.
“I thought you died.”
“Who told you?”
“Vanessa.”
Ethan looked down.
“She lies.”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Because I was hurt and scared, and I believed the wrong person.”
Ethan thought about it.
“Okay.”
Margaret looked startled.
“That’s all?”
“No.”
Arthur almost smiled despite himself.
Ethan continued.
“I’m still mad.”
“You can be.”
“Are you coming?”
Margaret hesitated.
“I want to.”
“That means no.”
“No. It means I’m scared.”
“Of me?”
Margaret’s face changed.
“No.”
“Grandpa?”
Another pause.
“A little.”
Arthur looked down.
Ethan glanced toward him.
“He’s right there.”
Margaret froze.
Arthur stepped into view.
For six years he had imagined seeing his daughter again in impossible dreams.
She was always thirty-six.
Always wearing the navy coat she had worn at Thanksgiving.
Always walking toward him.
In reality she sat on a laptop screen in a plain kitchen in Maine wearing a gray sweatshirt, hair shorter than he remembered, a faint scar crossing her left temple.
Arthur could not speak.
Neither could she.
Ethan looked between them.
“This is weird.”
Margaret laughed through tears.
Arthur did too.
It was.
Arthur pulled out the chair beside Ethan.
Margaret touched the screen.
“Hi, Dad.”
Arthur lowered himself into the chair.
“Hello, Maggie.”
Her face collapsed.
No one had called her that in six years.
Arthur did not deliver the speech he had unknowingly prepared every day since the funeral.
He did not ask why.
He did not accuse.
He did not apologize.
He said, “Your hair is short.”
Margaret laughed harder.
“That’s what you have?”
“It’s very short.”
“I cut it.”
“I assumed.”
Ethan looked bored.
“Can we talk about Walter?”
So they did.
Margaret came to Colorado four days later.
Federal investigators transported her privately because the Benton case had become national news.
Arthur did not go to the airport.
May you like
He wanted to.
Ethan asked him not to.
