Part 7
Lydia’s mind moved through possibilities. James was common. Jamie was common. A name proved nothing. Yet the timing of it felt like another hand tightening around her throat.
“Who named you?” she asked.
Jamie turned toward her sharply.
“You said you would stop.”
“You’re right.”
“Does she always do that?” he asked Adrian.
“Yes.”
“No,” Lydia and Nora said at the same time.
Adrian looked at Nora.
Nora gave the slightest shrug. “Frequently.”
Jamie’s mouth moved again. This time the almost-smile stayed for half a second longer.
A cold drop struck Lydia’s cheek. Rain had begun without warning, thin and scattered. The driver retrieved an umbrella from the car but did not approach.
Jamie pulled up his hood.
The white streak disappeared.
Lydia experienced the loss of it like a door shutting.
Nora’s phone vibrated. She looked down.
“The photograph is online,” she said.
Lydia did not ask where.
Adrian did. “What does it show?”
“All four of us. Jamie’s face is partially turned away.”
Jamie’s eyes hardened at hearing his name from her.
Nora noticed. “I’m sorry.”
“What did she write?”
Nora hesitated.
“Read it,” Lydia said.
“Lydia—”
“Read it.”
Nora looked at the screen. “‘Something strange happening outside Armitage. Lydia Marlowe appears emotional while speaking to homeless man who looks exactly like her son.’”
Adrian swore under his breath.
Jamie stepped farther away.
“How many people saw it?” Lydia asked.
“Not many yet.”
“That means enough,” Adrian said.
Jamie looked toward the terminal doors, then down the street.
Lydia understood. The conversation had changed. It was no longer only between them. Every additional second increased the chance that another phone would rise, another stranger would search their faces, another version of the story would exist before any of them knew the truth.
Nora put the phone away. “We need privacy.”
“I need to leave,” Jamie said.
Adrian moved instinctively, then stopped himself from blocking the path.
“Can we meet somewhere else?” he asked.
“No.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Can I give you my number?”
“No.”
“Can you give me yours?”
Jamie stared at him.
Adrian rubbed the seam of his coat again. “Right. Sorry.”
Lydia removed a card from her handbag. It was cream, thick, engraved only with her name and a private number used by very few people. She held it out but did not step closer.
Jamie looked at the card.
“I won’t ask for your number,” she said. “You can take mine or leave it. No one will follow you.”
Nora’s eyes moved toward Lydia.
Lydia understood the question. She answered without looking away from Jamie.
“No one.”
Nora nodded.
Jamie did not approach the card.
“How do I know that?”
“You don’t.”
“People like you always have someone follow.”
“Sometimes.”
Adrian looked at his mother. “Mom.”
“I’m not going to lie to him.”
Jamie’s gaze remained on Lydia.
She lowered the card slightly. “I could have someone find your name from station staff. I could ask the hotel security team to review exterior footage. I could hire investigators before midnight.”
His expression confirmed that he had expected all of it.
“I will not,” she said.
“Why should I believe you?”
“You should not. Not yet.”
Rain dotted the shoulders of her camel coat. A drop caught in Jamie’s eyebrow scar.
Lydia placed the card on the stone ledge where he had been sitting, beside the untouched coffee.
“You can decide later.”
He looked at it, then at her.
The terminal clock tower gave a soft internal chime, preparing to strike the hour.
Lydia suddenly remembered another clock.
Not as an image arriving whole, but as sound. A hospital corridor twenty-five years earlier. A wall clock with a second hand that scraped faintly at the top of every minute. She had listened to it while waiting for a nurse to return Julian after a routine examination. Adrian slept against her chest. The watch lay beside Julian’s empty bassinet because Lydia intended to photograph both boys with it before they left the hospital.
Then an alarm sounded.
The memory broke before it could become a story. Lydia was grateful. She had spent years turning those minutes over, searching for the point at which a different decision might have saved him. She could not survive doing it here.
Jamie’s eyes had moved to the card again.
“Did you know you were a twin?” Adrian asked.
Lydia turned toward him. “Adrian.”
“What? We’re running out of time.”
Jamie looked at him with something like recognition—not of identity, but of panic.
“No,” he said.
Adrian’s breathing changed.
Jamie continued before anyone spoke. “Not until five minutes ago.”
The station clock began to strike.
One.
Lydia’s fingers curled inside her gloves.
Two.
Adrian looked as though he had been hit.
Three.
Nora watched Jamie’s face, measuring every reaction.
Four.
A black car turned into the terminal lane. Its headlights crossed them, bright enough to make everyone blink.
Five.
Jamie looked toward the approaching car.
Six.
Two men in formal coats stepped out. Both were members of the Commonwealth’s event staff. One carried a garment bag. The other recognized Lydia and began walking toward her.
Seven.
Nora intercepted them with a raised hand.
Eight.
The rain strengthened.
Nine.
Jamie drew the watch from his pocket.
Ten.
He opened it again, keeping the photograph angled toward himself.
Eleven.
His thumb touched the damaged edge of the image.
Twelve.
The final strike faded beneath traffic.
For several seconds no one spoke.
Jamie studied the photograph as if it had changed since he last saw it. Lydia could see only the back of his hand, the cracked glass, the chain hanging toward the pavement.
“Who gave it to you?” Adrian asked.
Jamie did not answer.
“Was it someone you trusted?” Lydia asked, then stopped. “No. I’m sorry.”
He lifted his eyes. “You keep apologizing and doing it again.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I have wanted the answer to that question longer than you have been alive.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“I know.”
May you like
His expression sharpened. “How?”
The question struck all of them.
