Chapter 2 - SHE
I did not climb another step.
“Who told you?”
The man remained above me.
No answer.
Vanessa stood from the chair.
“Daniel, don't do this here.”
I turned.
“Here?”
Lily was watching us.
That was enough.
I crouched beside her.
“Sweetheart, Mrs. Alvarez is in the kitchen.”
Our housekeeper had worked for my mother before she worked for me.
“She'll sit with you while I talk to the adults.”
Lily looked upstairs.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“You swear?”
“Yes.”
I held out the cufflink.
“And you did nothing wrong by finding this.”
Vanessa looked away.
Good.
Lily went toward the kitchen.
I waited until Mrs. Alvarez appeared and took her hand.
Then I looked upstairs.
“Come down.”
The shoes moved.
Slowly.
One step.
Then another.
Gray hair came into view first.
A man somewhere in his early fifties.
Tall.
Lean.
Dark suit that looked expensive without looking new.
He stopped halfway down.
I did not recognize him.
He was studying my face differently.
Like he did.
“Who told you I was dead?”
His eyes moved past me.
Not toward Vanessa.
Toward the framed photograph on the foyer wall.
My mother.
Margaret Bennett.
Then he said:
“Margaret.”
I felt something cold move through my chest.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Nineteen ninety-nine.”
I stared.
I had been twelve.
Very much alive.
Vanessa stepped between us.
“This is not the way this conversation was supposed to happen.”
I looked at her.
“There was a way?”
“Daniel—”
“Move.”
She did.
The man came down one more step.
I saw the family resemblance then.
Not enough to name.
Enough to disturb me.
Same brow.
Same strange outward angle in the left ear I had spent my life blaming on my father.
“What is your name?”
He hesitated.
Then:
“Michael Reed.”
Nothing.
I knew no Michael Reed.
But the name Reed scratched at something very old.
A hallway.
A red bicycle.
Someone taller than me calling from the backyard.
Gone before the memory focused.
I looked at Vanessa.
“How long has he been in my house?”
“Three hours.”
Michael corrected:
“Four.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
I laughed once.
Badly.
“You hid a stranger upstairs for four hours.”
“He isn't a stranger.”
Michael looked at her.
“That would have been useful information earlier.”
I turned back.
“What are you to me?”
Michael's face changed.
He looked suddenly less prepared.
Then he reached into his inside jacket pocket.
Vanessa said:
“Michael.”
He ignored her.
He removed an old photograph.
Did not hand it over.
Just held it where I could see.
My mother.
Younger.
Maybe thirty.
A teenage boy beside her.
Michael.
And a child on the grass holding a red plastic airplane.
Me.
I stared.
I remembered the airplane.
I remembered the backyard.
I did not remember him.
Not clearly.
Michael looked at the photograph too.
May you like
Then at me.
“She was my mother too.”
