Chương 6
“No.”
“Does he know who his father was?”
Victoria did not answer.
Claire understood.
“Oh my God.”
Edward got up.
“I need air.”
He left.
Claire remained with her mother.
The rain had softened.
Without the train outside, the platform looked strangely ordinary. Wet tracks. Steel. Light.
“Why was Daniel hiding this in Lily’s photograph?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why were you terrified when she found it?”
“Because he threatened to expose everything.”
“To who?”
“Everyone.”
“Maybe they deserved to know.”
“You say that because you have never had to decide what truth costs other people.”
Claire stared at her.
“Lily is seven.”
“I know.”
“You humiliated her in front of fifty people because you were afraid of a USB drive.”
Victoria’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
The honesty took some of the air out of Claire’s anger.
Not enough.
Victoria sat down.
“I saw Daniel on that screen,” she said. “For one second I thought—”
She stopped.
Claire waited.
Victoria shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It mattered enough for you to drag my daughter outside.”
“I panicked.”
“You don’t panic.”
“Everyone panics.”
“Not like that.”
“No,” Victoria said. “Apparently I do.”
Claire looked at the woman who had taught her never to cry in public, never to send an email angry, never to wear linen after September, never to let anyone know when they had frightened you.
For the first time, Victoria looked frightened of herself.
Claire hated that she could feel pity and rage at the same time.
She hated her mother a little for making even hatred complicated.
“Why tonight?” Claire asked.
“What?”
“Why did Daniel arrange for Lily to find it tonight?”
“He didn’t.”
“The frame was in her suitcase.”
Victoria frowned.
Claire looked at the photograph.
Lily kept it at home.
Claire had not packed it.
“Who put this in her suitcase?”
Neither woman spoke.
Claire opened the READ FIRST file again.
Near the bottom, Daniel had written:
If Mom still refuses to tell Claire, give her the photograph. She’ll understand why I picked that one.
Claire looked at the picture.
Cape May.
Daniel.
Claire.
Lily.
Nothing else.
She removed the backing completely.
A second piece of paper was tucked beneath the photograph.
Not digital.
Folded twice.
Claire opened it.
A phone number had been written in Daniel’s handwriting.
Underneath:
SAMUEL BELL. DON’T CALL UNTIL YOU KNOW WHY DAD LEFT HIM.
Claire sat down.
Victoria whispered, “I never saw that.”
“I believe you.”
It was the first thing Claire had believed from her mother without reservation all night.
Michael called.
Lily was asleep.
Claire told him she would come upstairs soon.
She did not tell him about Samuel.
Not yet.
That surprised her.
She had spent the last hour furious at other people for withholding information, and now she was doing exactly the same thing.
Maybe secrecy was not a Morgan disease.
Maybe it was simply what frightened people did when the truth arrived faster than they could absorb it.
Claire copied the number into her phone.
She did not call.
At 1:14 in the morning, she went upstairs.
Michael was sitting beside Lily’s bed.
The child slept diagonally across the mattress in hotel pajamas, one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
Claire stood in the doorway.
Michael looked at her.
“Well?”
She sat on the carpet.
Not the chair.
Not the bed.
The carpet.
“I have a brother.”
Michael stared.
Claire laughed once.
“I think.”
“What?”
She told him.
Not everything elegantly.
She lost the order twice. She had to go back. At one point she spent three minutes explaining Harrow Street before realizing she had forgotten to tell him who Samuel was.
Michael listened.
When she finished, he looked at Lily.
“Does your mother know where he is?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
That was a lie.
Michael knew it.
He waited.
Claire rubbed her forehead.
“Because if I ask, then he becomes real.”
“He’s real whether you ask.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She looked at him.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not attacking you.”
“It sounds like it.”
“I’m tired.”
“So am I.”
They sat in silence.
Lily snored once.
Michael looked at her.
“She does that when she’s congested.”
Claire almost smiled.
“She’ll deny it tomorrow.”
“She gets that from your side.”
“Careful.”
He reached down and touched Claire’s hair.
The gesture undid something.
Claire leaned against his knee.
“I miss Daniel.”
“I know.”
“I’m so angry at him.”
Michael’s hand stopped.
“For leaving this?”
“For making Lily part of it.”
“Maybe he didn’t.”
“He hid it in her photograph.”
“Yes.”
“That’s making her part of it.”
Michael considered that.
“You’re right.”
Claire had expected him to defend Daniel.
His agreement hurt more.
“I wish he’d told me.”
“Maybe he tried.”
“He called me the night he died.”
Michael’s hand went still again.
Claire had never told him that.
“I didn’t answer.”
“Claire.”
“I was giving Lily a bath. He’d called twice that week about some stupid fight with Mom. I saw his name and thought, not tonight.”
She stared at the hotel carpet.
“He left a voicemail.”
“What did he say?”
“Call me when you get a chance.”
Michael said nothing.
“I deleted it after the funeral.”
“Why?”
“Because I listened to it forty times.”
She pressed her palms against her eyes.
“And every time he said when you get a chance, I thought about how apparently I never got one.”
Michael sat on the floor beside her.
They stayed there until almost three.
The next morning, Claire called Samuel Bell.
She did it from the hotel bathroom because Lily was still sleeping and Michael had gone downstairs for coffee.
The phone rang four times.
A man answered.
“Hello?”
Claire nearly hung up.
“Is this Samuel Bell?”
“Who’s asking?”
“My name is Claire Morgan.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
That was worse.
“Samuel?”
“I’m here.”
“I think we need to talk.”
Another silence.
Then, “Victoria finally told you.”
Claire sat on the closed toilet lid.
“You know Victoria?”
May you like
“I know who she is.”
“Do you know who I am?”
