Part 4
“Something I received,” Margaret said. “Something about your dad’s family.”
Lily’s body changed. Not dramatically. She just straightened, as if Daniel’s name had touched her spine.
Margaret sat. “I need to tell you some of it. Not all at once. And not because you need to carry it. You don’t. But if I bring anything to that party, if I do anything, you deserve to know why.”
Lily came to the table but did not sit.
“Is Grandma sick?”
“No.”
“Did she do something?”
Margaret almost laughed. It would have sounded ugly. “Yes.”
She told Lily carefully. Not every detail. Not the audio. Not Evelyn’s threat in full. She said there had been a woman before her. She said Daniel may have had a child he never knew about. She said Evelyn appeared to have paid the woman to disappear. She said the proof looked serious but needed to be handled carefully.
Lily listened without interrupting. Teenagers, Margaret had learned, could look indifferent while absorbing everything through their skin.
“So I might have an aunt?” Lily said finally.
“Half-aunt, technically. But yes. Maybe.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yes.”
“Does she know about us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to find her?”
“I’m going to try.”
Lily pulled out a chair and sat. “Before Thursday?”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“But you’re still bringing the gift.”
Margaret looked at the envelope. “I’m thinking about it.”
Lily’s eyes sharpened. “Mom.”
“What?”
“You said that the way you say things when you already decided and want to feel responsible for considering not doing it.”
Margaret looked at her daughter, and for one second Daniel was there in Lily’s mouth, in the dry accuracy of the observation. She had his ability to make a person feel seen and mildly accused.
“I don’t want revenge to be the only thing I give you,” Margaret said.
Lily looked down. “It doesn’t feel like revenge.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like not letting her keep deciding what everyone’s allowed to know.”
Margaret sat with that. Outside, someone started a lawn mower even though the grass did not need it. The sound moved faintly through the window, absurdly cheerful.
“I need to find Elise Warren,” Margaret said.
Lily nodded, too quickly. “Okay.”
“And I need you not to search online for any of this.”
Lily’s face gave her away.
“Lily.”
“I won’t post anything.”
“That is not what I said.”
“I know.”
“This is not gossip.”
“I know.”
“This is a person’s life.”
“I know, Mom.”
Margaret believed that Lily meant it. She also knew sixteen-year-olds could mean something sincerely and violate it within hours because pain made them want company.
“Give me your phone,” Margaret said.
Lily stared. “Are you serious?”
“Until tonight.”
“Mom.”
“You can have mine if you need to call someone. But I need a few hours where this doesn’t leave the kitchen.”
Lily’s eyes filled again, this time with anger. “So she gets to say whatever she wants, and I get my phone taken?”
“No,” Margaret said. “She doesn’t get to say whatever she wants. And you get protected from making a permanent decision while you’re hurt.”
“That sounds like something adults say when they want control.”
“It probably is.”
The honesty disarmed Lily for half a second.
Margaret held out her hand.
Lily placed the phone in it with enough force to make a point, then left the kitchen. A few seconds later, from the staircase, she called, “I hate this family.”
Margaret looked at the envelope again.
“Fair,” she said, though Lily could not hear her.
Finding Elise Warren took less time than deciding whether she had the right to look.
The documents on the flash drive listed an old address in Maryland and the name of a law office that had dissolved twelve years ago. Margaret spent Saturday afternoon at the kitchen table with her laptop, a notebook, and guilt sitting beside her like another person. She found three Elise Warrens in the broad age range. One was a retired teacher in Oregon. One had died in Ohio. One had a daughter named Claire who owned a small floral design studio outside Philadelphia.
Claire Warren was twenty-one years younger than Daniel.
May you like
Margaret closed the search result, opened it again, and stared at Claire’s photo on the studio website. Dark blond hair. Long face. A smile that looked practiced for clients. There was nothing obvious of Daniel in her, which disappointed Margaret and relieved her in equal measure. Biology did not always announce itself. Secrets did not owe you convenient cheekbones.
The studio’s website listed an email address and phone number. Margaret wrote a message, deleted it, wrote another, deleted that too. She made coffee, forgot it in the microwave, and found it forty minutes later when the microwave beeped because Lily had opened it looking for leftover pasta.
