Part 9
Their fingers did not touch.
Nora returned to Lydia’s side.
Jamie opened the umbrella with one hand. One rib was slightly bent, though the fabric was new. He examined the defect automatically.
“I can fix this,” he said.
“It still opens,” Nora replied.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
Lydia watched him adjust the metal rib with his thumb. Julian had been eleven hours old when he disappeared. He had no habits she could remember beyond the reflexive curl of his fingers. She had built an imagined personality from Adrian’s missing half, wondering whether Julian would have been more patient, less cautious, artistic, reckless, difficult, kind.
The man before her fixed broken things because function was not enough if something remained wrong.
That fact belonged to him, not to her imagination.
She wanted to know every fact.
She had no right to any of them.
“Jamie,” she said.
He looked up from the umbrella.
“I am going to make you a promise.”
His expression suggested promises from strangers had little value.
“I will not have you followed. I will not ask the station staff for your name or records. I will not ask hotel security to search footage. I will not hire anyone to investigate you.”
Adrian turned. “Mom.”
She kept her eyes on Jamie. “Not unless you contact me and agree.”
“What about the photograph online?” he asked.
“I will have Nora ask that it be removed.”
“You can do that?”
“I can ask.”
“And if they say no?”
“Then it stays.”
He studied her, perhaps expecting a richer answer.
“We cannot buy every person’s silence,” Lydia said.
Nora’s eyebrow lifted slightly. Lydia ignored it.
Jamie looked at the card on the ledge. Rain had darkened one corner, though the umbrella partly covered it now.
“Why would you keep that promise?” he asked.
“Because if you are not who we fear you may be, then you deserve to be left alone.”
“And if I am?”
Lydia’s control nearly broke again.
“Then you have already had enough taken from you.”
Adrian lowered his gaze.
Jamie looked down the street.
The rain softened almost immediately, leaving the pavement shining. A taxi pulled away, revealing the orange lights of a food truck parked at the corner. Steam rose when its service window opened.
Jamie’s eyes lingered there.
Lydia noticed.
She almost offered money, food, a room, a doctor, new clothes, every practical form of care wealth had made effortless for her. She understood each offer would sound like an attempt to purchase access.
So she said nothing.
The silence lasted.
A commuter dropped a glove near the curb. Jamie saw it first. He stepped over, picked it up, and called after her. The woman turned. He handed it back without taking his eyes off the Marlowes.
“Thank you,” she said, already moving away.
Jamie returned beneath the umbrella.
The ordinary gesture affected Lydia more than anything else had. Not because it proved goodness. People were not tests with answers. But because the movement was familiar. Adrian always noticed what others dropped. Tickets, keys, scarves, receipts. As a child he had once chased a man half a block to return a grocery list.
Lydia looked at Adrian.
He was watching Jamie with the same recognition.
“You do that,” Adrian said.
Jamie frowned. “Do what?”
“Nothing.”
“Then don’t say it.”
Adrian nodded.
Nora’s phone rang. She looked at the screen and declined the call.
“Who?” Lydia asked.
“Daniel from communications.”
“Tell him I’m delayed.”
“He knows.”
“Tell him not to issue anything.”
“He asked whether the man is related to you.”
Jamie’s posture changed again.
“What did you say?” Lydia asked.
“That I did not know.”
“Good.”
Adrian looked toward the hotel entrance. Several staff members had gathered discreetly inside the glass doors.
“The dinner,” he said.
Lydia had forgotten it for almost a minute.
“What about it?” Jamie asked.
“My mother is hosting a foundation event.”
“What foundation?”
Adrian hesitated.
Lydia answered. “Emergency care for newborns.”
Jamie’s eyes moved to her face.
The irony was too sharp to explain.
He glanced at the hotel, where a large arrangement of white flowers had been positioned beneath the entrance canopy. A gold sign near the doors displayed the foundation’s initials. From this distance, the full name could not be read.
“Because of the baby who disappeared?” he asked.
Lydia felt the question enter her chest.
“Yes.”
“People know about that?”
“Some of it.”
“How much?”
“That there were twins. That one was lost during an evacuation.”
“And they gave you money?”
Adrian bristled. “She raised money.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
Lydia touched Adrian’s sleeve. He went quiet.
“Yes,” she said. “They gave the foundation money because I told them what happened.”
“Did you tell them his name?”
“Julian.”
Jamie looked away.
The name remained in the rain between them.
Lydia continued because stopping would make it heavier. “Julian James Marlowe.”
Jamie’s hand closed around the umbrella handle.
Adrian’s breathing became audible.
“James,” Jamie said.
“Yes.”
“Why James?”
“It was my father’s name.”
Jamie’s eyes returned to her. “The man who raised me was named James.”
Lydia’s hope rose so violently it felt like illness.
She did not move.
Nora’s expression remained controlled, but the tendons in her neck tightened.
“What was his last name?” Adrian asked.
Jamie looked at him.
Adrian lifted both hands slightly. “You don’t have to answer.”
“Then stop asking.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
Adrian nodded.
Jamie pressed his lips together. “Vale.”
Lydia searched the name. It meant nothing.
“James Vale,” Nora repeated softly, not as a question.
Jamie looked at her. “Don’t write it down.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t search it.”
Nora glanced at Lydia.
Lydia answered. “She won’t.”
Nora nodded once.
Jamie did not appear reassured.
“Is he alive?” Lydia asked.
The question left before she could stop it.
Jamie’s gaze hardened.
Lydia closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” he said. “He died six months ago.”
May you like
Adrian looked at the watch.
Jamie followed his gaze and put his hand over the pocket.
