Chương 2
"I need five minutes," Daniel said.
"No."
The word came out faster than she expected.
His face changed slightly.
Not anger.
Disappointment.
That bothered her more.
"You don't get to disappear for years and ask for five minutes."
"I didn't disappear."
"My mother said you did."
Daniel looked down.
The movement was small, but Mara saw it.
A person preparing for a wound.
"Your mother said a lot of things."
"She was dying."
"Yes."
The answer was quiet.
"And she still didn't tell you everything."
Mara felt the anger rise because it was easier than admitting the other feeling underneath.
Fear.
"What does that mean?"
Daniel glanced at Lily.
His expression shifted.
"Not in front of her."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Act like you care about protecting my daughter when you don't even know me."
Daniel looked at the little girl holding Mara's hand.
"I know more about you than you think."
The sentence was wrong in several different ways.
It was threatening.
It was impossible.
It was exactly the kind of thing a stranger should never say.
Mara stepped back.
"How?"
Daniel opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
That hesitation told her more than an answer might have.
Before he could speak, a woman in a navy coat walked quickly across the lobby toward them.
She looked at Daniel.
Then at Mara.
Then at the envelope.
Her face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
"Mara Ellis?"
Mara turned.
"Yes."
The woman stopped a few feet away.
"My name is Claire Benton."
Mara waited.
"I was your mother's attorney."
The words should have brought relief.
Instead they created another problem.
Because Evelyn Ellis had never mentioned an attorney.
Not once.
Claire reached into her bag and removed a folder.
"I was hoping you would not come here."
Mara stared at her.
"That is a strange thing for my mother's lawyer to say."
"I know."
Claire looked uncomfortable.
"I also know your mother asked me not to contact you unless you found Daniel yourself."
Daniel looked away.
Mara noticed.
She noticed everything.
"Why?"
Claire didn't answer immediately.
The pause was long enough to feel intentional.
"Because she was afraid someone else would find you first."
The sentence changed the air around them.
Mara felt Lily move closer.
Daniel tightened his grip on the cardboard box.
And somewhere inside the envelope she had carried across town, the paper that had once felt like the last thing her mother left her suddenly felt like the beginning of something much larger.
Mara looked from Claire to Daniel and felt the familiar sensation of standing in the middle of a conversation where everyone else had been given the first half.
"Someone needs to start explaining."
Claire glanced toward the courthouse doors.
"Not here."
Mara almost laughed.
"Everybody keeps saying that."
Her voice was sharper than she intended.
"My mother spent years telling me to stay away from him, then she dies and leaves me a note telling me to find him, and now both of you are standing here telling me there are things I can't hear in a public building."
Daniel lowered his eyes.
"You have every right to be angry."
"Don't tell me what I have a right to feel."
"I wasn't."
"That's what people say right before they do."
For a moment, nobody spoke.
A security officer walked past them with a clipboard, and the ordinary movement of the courthouse made the situation feel even stranger.
Mara hated that part most.
Nothing around her matched what was happening inside her.
The woman at the coffee stand was laughing with a customer.
A man in a suit was arguing about a missed appointment.
A child near the entrance was trying to balance a coin on his nose.
Meanwhile, Mara was looking at a stranger who might have been connected to the worst years of her mother's life.
Claire touched the folder against her chest.
"There's a small café across the street."
Mara shook her head.
"No."
Claire studied her.
"You don't trust us."
"No."
The honesty surprised even Mara.
Daniel gave a quiet nod.
"Fair."
That made her more uncomfortable than if he had argued.
She had prepared herself for arrogance.
She had prepared herself for denial.
She had not prepared for a tired man who seemed to accept her anger because he believed he deserved it.
"Ten minutes," Claire said.
"Five," Mara replied.
Claire looked at Daniel.
He nodded.
"Five is enough to start."
Mara almost asked what that meant, but she stopped herself.
She was tired of asking questions that other people answered with half-truths.
She took Lily's hand and walked toward the doors.
She did not look back to see if they followed.
She heard them behind her anyway.
The café smelled like burnt coffee and cinnamon.
It was the kind of place people visited because it was close to something else.
The tables were scratched.
The chairs did not match.
A college student was asleep over an open textbook near the window.
An older man was feeding pieces of a muffin to a dog under his chair even though a sign on the wall clearly said no pets allowed.
Lily noticed the sign and whispered, "That dog is breaking the rules."
Mara looked at the man sneaking the muffin.
"Apparently everyone has their own relationship with rules."
Lily considered that.
"Grandma had a lot of rules."
Mara felt Daniel glance at her.
She ignored him.
They sat at a table in the corner.
Mara kept Lily beside her.
Daniel sat across from them.
Claire sat next to him but not close enough to suggest friendship.
That detail stayed with Mara.
People who were comfortable together usually moved without thinking.
These two looked like they were carefully measuring every inch between them.
"Start," Mara said.
Daniel rubbed his thumb against the edge of his coffee cup.
"My relationship with your mother was complicated."
Mara stared at him.
"That is not a story."
"No."
May you like
He looked at her.
"It's the part people usually skip because they want everything to fit into one sentence."
