Part 5
Lydia’s eyes shut for one second.
When she opened them, the stranger had gone completely still.
He looked at the watch in his hand.
“No,” he said.
Adrian’s face tightened. “I know what she looked like.”
“I said no.”
“You asked.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
The force in the answer was small but clear. Adrian stepped back.
The stranger turned the watch over. His thumb brushed the engraving. He had probably done that thousands of times. The scratches on the casing followed the paths of his fingers.
Lydia noticed his nails were clean despite the condition of his clothes.
An absurd detail. A mother’s detail.
“What is your name?” she asked.
He looked up.
She regretted the question at once. It sounded like another demand.
He slid the watch into his coat pocket. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“No,” Lydia said. “It isn’t.”
The answer halted him.
She removed one glove. The movement took longer than it should have because her fingers had stiffened. She held the glove in the other hand, needing the cold against her skin.
“My name is Lydia Marlowe.”
Recognition did not appear in his face.
For once she was grateful.
“This is my son, Adrian.”
The stranger’s gaze shifted toward Adrian again.
“And this is Nora Bell. She works with me.”
Nora gave him a slight nod.
“You have names now,” the young man said. “Congratulations.”
Adrian looked away. Lydia did not.
“The watch belonged to my family.”
“It belongs to me.”
“I understand that.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Then help me understand.”
He gave a tired, humorless breath. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The part where you ask nicely like that makes it different.”
Lydia looked at the open car door, the driver waiting, the Commonwealth Hotel rising behind them. She saw what he saw: a wealthy woman expecting a stranger to provide access to his life because she had softened her voice.
“You’re right,” she said.
He frowned.
“I have no right to ask you for anything.”
Adrian turned toward her.
Lydia continued before courage left. “But the photograph inside that watch was taken twenty-five years ago. It shows me with two newborn boys. Adrian was one of them.”
The stranger’s eyes moved to Adrian.
“The other boy disappeared during a hospital evacuation,” Lydia said. “The watch disappeared with him.”
A pulse shifted in the stranger’s jaw.
Nora watched his right hand move instinctively toward the coat pocket where he had placed the watch.
Adrian’s breath came shallow and fast. He had known the history, but hearing it spoken to this man changed every familiar sentence.
The stranger shook his head once.
“No.”
“I’m not saying I know what this means.”
“You just said—”
“I said what happened. I did not say who you are.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“Yes.”
The plainness of the admission widened something in his expression. Fear, perhaps. Or anger.
“So is he,” Lydia said, glancing at Adrian. “So is Nora. And you would be right not to trust any of us.”
The stranger looked toward the station doors. People entered and exited around them, giving the group the respectful berth granted to a private conflict in a public place.
A woman in a red scarf slowed, recognized Lydia, and quickly raised her phone.
Nora saw her.
She stepped sideways, blocking the angle without making the motion obvious. “We need to move,” she said quietly.
The stranger noticed the phone too. His shoulders hardened.
“This is why I don’t talk to people like you.”
Adrian followed his gaze. “She’s not with us.”
“She knows your mother.”
“She might.”
“That’s enough.”
He turned again.
“Please,” Lydia said.
He stopped but did not face her.
Nora leaned close to Lydia. “Not here. Whatever happens next cannot happen on the pavement.”
“There may not be a next,” Lydia whispered.
The stranger heard.
He looked back over his shoulder.
For the first time, Lydia saw something other than suspicion in his face. It appeared only briefly. A kind of exhaustion too old for twenty-five.
He looked at Adrian, then at the hotel across the street.
“You own that place?” he asked Lydia.
“Yes.”
“Of course you do.”
Adrian bristled. “What does that mean?”
“It means you look like you belong in the window.”
“What window?”
“Any of them.”
Adrian glanced toward the Commonwealth. Warm light had begun to glow behind its upper panes. Staff moved inside the lobby, preparing for guests who would arrive dressed for Lydia’s foundation dinner.
The stranger looked down at Adrian’s polished shoes.
“And I look like I’m not allowed near the door.”
“No one said that,” Adrian replied.
“They don’t have to.”
Lydia felt the sentence settle between her sons before she could stop herself from naming them that way in her mind.
Her sons.
The thought was both intimate and obscene.
She had no proof. She had no permission. Yet some part of her had already crossed the distance and touched the young man’s face.
A security officer emerged from the terminal. He was broad shouldered, middle-aged, and familiar with Lydia from the annual meetings between the hotel and station management. He looked toward Nora for guidance.
“Everything all right?”
The stranger’s posture changed immediately. He stepped away from the wall, weight balanced over his feet. His exhaustion disappeared behind readiness.
Lydia saw the reaction and understood how often questions like that had ended badly for him.
“Yes,” she said quickly. “Everything is fine.”
The officer looked at the stranger, then at Lydia.
“Ms. Marlowe?”
“He is speaking with my family.”
The word family escaped before she could choose another.
Adrian heard it. Nora heard it. The stranger did too.
The security officer nodded, confused but obedient. “All right. Let me know if you need anything.”
“We won’t.”
He returned inside.
The stranger watched him go.
“My family,” he repeated.
May you like
Lydia’s bare hand had gone numb. She put the glove back on to give herself something to do.
“I should not have said that.”
