Part 14
Celeste stared at it.
“I know this key.”
Mason looked at her.
“It opens the old archive room under my father’s office.”
“Why would someone give Wren that?”
Celeste’s face had gone pale.
“Because there are records down there.”
Mason stood, lifting Wren into his arms again.
“Then we go.”
Celeste looked at the child.
“Only if she wants to.”
Wren clung to Mason’s neck.
“I want to stay with Daddy.”
The word still hit him like a physical thing.
But he nodded.
“You stay with me.”
The archive room was behind a narrow door beneath the staircase near Charles Rowan’s office. Celeste had not been inside since she was a teenager. She told Mason that her father used it for old contracts, estate deeds, private papers, and things he did not want assistants touching.
The brass key fit.
The lock turned with a slow, reluctant click.
A narrow staircase led down into a stone-walled room beneath the villa. It smelled cool and dry, like dust and wine corks. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Boxes were labeled in black ink. Some bore Charles Rowan’s handwriting. Others carried the names of law firms, foundations, businesses, and properties.
Wren buried her face against Mason’s shoulder.
“It’s scary.”
“I know,” Mason said. “We won’t stay long.”
Celeste moved toward a row of shelves marked PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.
Her hands shook as she scanned the labels.
Then she found one.
BELL, NORA — 2018.
Mason felt his stomach drop.
Celeste pulled out the box.
It was small, dark blue, and sealed with old tape.
She looked at him.
“Do you want to open it?”
Mason stared at the name.
“I don’t know.”
Celeste nodded.
“Then I will.”
She cut through the tape with a letter opener she had brought from the office.
Inside were photocopies of letters, a legal agreement, phone records, and a thin notebook with Nora’s name written on the cover.
Mason’s vision blurred.
“What is that?” Wren asked.
Celeste opened the notebook.
The first page was dated seven years earlier.
Nora had written in a small slanted hand.
March 4.
Called Mason again. No answer.
A second entry.
March 7.
A man came to the bookstore. He knew my name. He said Mr. Harrow wanted me to stop reaching out.
Mason’s jaw tightened.
A third.
March 12.
I called Mason from the pay phone outside the pharmacy. Someone picked up. A woman said I had the wrong number, but I heard Mason’s voicemail in the background.
Celeste looked at him.
Mason stared at the page.
“My assistant,” he said.
“What?”
“I had an assistant then. Her name was Gina. She screened calls when I was traveling.”
“Did you tell her to block Nora?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
Mason did not answer.
The notebook continued.
March 18.
Charles called. He said he wanted to help. He said he knew what it was like to have a child caught between families. He asked me not to go to the media, not to call Mason at work, not to make this public before I knew what I wanted. He said he would arrange temporary support.
Celeste’s hand covered her mouth.
Mason read over her shoulder.
April 2.
They want me to sign papers. They say Mason knows. They say he does not want a child. I don’t believe them, but I don’t know how to prove I’m right.
Wren shifted in Mason’s arms.
“Mommy wrote that?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Was she sad?”
“Yes.”
The child pressed her face into his neck.
Mason continued reading.
May 9.
I saw Celeste at the garden store in Cambridge. She was with an older woman, maybe her mother. She looked happy. I almost walked over. I almost told her. Then I thought about what Charles said. Maybe everyone already knows except me.
Mason looked at Celeste.
Her face had gone still.
“I never saw her,” she said.
“I know.”
“I mean it. I would remember.”
“I know.”
The notebook ended abruptly three months later.
The final page was dated the day Wren was born.
September 22.
She is here. Her name is Wren Eleanor Bell. I looked at her and realized I could not let them decide what she was worth. I am leaving Boston. I don’t know where yet. I am scared, but I am more scared of staying.
Mason had to stop reading.
His arms tightened around the child.
Wren slept against him again, exhausted by the stairs, the dark room, the weight of adults’ voices.
Celeste closed the notebook.
Her eyes were wet.
“My father helped hide her,” she said.
Mason looked at the shelves around them.
“Maybe.”
“No.” Her voice sharpened. “He did.”
“You don’t know every detail.”
“I know enough.”
May you like
Mason saw the anger rising in her.
Not at him alone.
