Chương 2
She had believed him.
“Why did you take it?”
“I wanted the picture.”
“What picture?”
Noah’s breathing became shallow.
Olivia sat on the floor.
The lock was bent.
There were scrape marks around it, fresh and pale against the darker wood.
“You opened this?”
He nodded.
“How?”
“With Grandpa’s little screwdriver.”
Her father had been dead eleven years. Victoria still kept his tools in a utility drawer because she could never remember which screwdriver was which and refused to buy new ones.
Olivia touched the damaged lock.
“Noah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not worried about the lock.”
“She was.”
“Grandma found out?”
Another nod.
“When?”
“The next day.”
“How?”
“I left the screwdriver out.”
Of course he had.
Seven-year-olds did not execute conspiracies. They forgot screwdrivers.
“What happened?”
“She asked me what I saw.”
“And what did you tell her?”
Noah looked toward the door.
“I said nothing.”
“Was that true?”
His chin trembled.
“No.”
Olivia lifted the box.
It was heavier than she remembered.
Her palm was damp against the polished wood.
The damaged lock held until she turned the box sideways.
Then the weakened latch slipped.
The lid fell open.
An old photograph slid out and struck the carpet.
A folded piece of cream paper followed it.
Noah made a sound like he had been punched.
Olivia saw the photograph first.
She was twenty-four in it.
Her hair was longer. Her face was thinner. She was laughing at whoever held the camera, one hand lifted to block the lens. Beside her stood Daniel Carter.
Daniel eight years younger.
No beard. Work boots. A faded red T-shirt she remembered with painful precision because she used to steal it from his apartment and sleep in it.
His arm was around her waist.
Olivia stared.
She had not seen the photograph in years.
She had believed she threw it away.
Apparently she had only believed many things.
“Noah found that,” she said, though no one had asked.
The paper in her hand was folded twice.
Her name was written on the outside.
OLIVIA.
Her mother’s handwriting.
Olivia opened it.
The first paragraph was dated eight years earlier.
She read two lines.
Then three.
The bedroom seemed to become very far away.
Noah slid off the bed.
Olivia heard him, but she could not look away from the handwriting.
Her mother had written the note and never sent it.
Or perhaps written it as a confession she lacked the courage to make.
Olivia read the sentence again.
Daniel does not know the baby survived. You were never supposed to know that I told him otherwise, just as the child was never supposed to know he was his father.
Her mouth went dry.
Noah had come close enough to touch her shoulder.
Olivia stared at him.
Then at the photograph.
Then at the words.
“Wait,” she whispered. Her voice barely worked. “This says you were never supposed to know he was your father.”
Noah’s face collapsed.
He began crying without sound.
Olivia dropped the letter.
She caught him before he reached her, or he caught her; afterward she could not remember. His thin arms locked around her neck, stuffed dog squeezed between them.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t supposed to—”
“Noah, no.”
“She said you’d be mad.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“She said you’d lose me.”
“What?”
“She said if you knew I took it, you might send me away.”
Olivia pulled back so fast he startled.
“Who said that?”
His eyes filled again.
“Grandma.”
For the first time that night, anger arrived.
Not loud anger.
Something cleaner.
Something that made Olivia’s shaking stop.
She sat Noah on the edge of the bed.
“What exactly did she say?”
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“That’s okay. Just what you remember.”
He wiped his nose on his sleeve, then looked guilty for that too.
Olivia almost laughed. It came close enough to hurt.
“I found it weeks ago,” he whispered, “but she told me I would lose you if I showed it.”
The words settled between them.
Olivia’s smartphone vibrated in her cardigan pocket.
She ignored it.
It vibrated again.
Noah looked toward the door.
Heavy footsteps crossed the upstairs hall.
Daniel’s voice came from outside.
“Liv?”
Olivia could not answer.
The door opened.
Daniel stood there in his black jacket over the white shirt he had worn to work, his sleeves shoved up. A small streak of gray dust marked one wrist from the garage cabinet.
“I heard—”
He stopped.
His gaze moved from Noah’s face to Olivia on the floor, then to the open box.
Then the photograph.
Daniel went completely still.
Olivia had known him in many forms.
Twenty-four-year-old Daniel, who laughed too loudly in movie theaters.
Thirty-two-year-old Daniel, who disappeared from her life after the worst month she had ever survived.
Thirty-nine-year-old Daniel, who walked into a hospital fundraiser six years later and looked at her as if he had seen a ghost.
Forty-year-old Daniel, who now lived in her house, remembered which cereal Noah liked, hated decorative throw pillows, and checked the front door lock twice every night because his mother’s house had been burglarized when he was twelve.
She had never seen this version.
“What is that?” he asked.
Olivia stood.
She handed him the letter.
“Read it.”
Daniel glanced at Noah.
“Liv—”
“Read it.”
He did.
His face changed halfway through the first paragraph.
It did not crumple.
Daniel was not a man whose emotions moved outward easily.
His jaw tightened. The hand holding the paper lowered slightly. He read the sentence again, exactly as Olivia had.
Then he looked at Noah.
“No.”
Olivia did not know whether it was denial or prayer.
Daniel sat on the chair with the unfolded laundry, sending a stack of Noah’s T-shirts onto the floor.
He did not notice.
“No,” he said again.
Olivia’s phone vibrated a third time.
This time she pulled it out.
MOM flashed across the screen.
May you like
A new text appeared.
I need to know whether Noah told you anything. Call me before you talk to Daniel.
