Chapter 6 - THE AUNT WHO HAD BEEN WATCHING FROM A DISTANCE
Aunt Kathy lived thirty minutes away.
She arrived furious.
Not guilty.
Not ashamed.
Furious.
“You had no right to drag me into this over the phone.”
Dad stood in the kitchen doorway.
“Did you send Daniel a picture of Leo?”
Kathy’s anger disappeared.
That quickly.
I knew the answer.
“When?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“Emma—”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
Leo sat at the table beside me.
He had insisted on staying again.
This was his story too.
“How did you know where Daniel was?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then how did you send him anything?”
“I sent it to the law firm listed on that old envelope.”
My mother looked stunned.
“You knew about the letter?”
Kathy laughed bitterly.
“You called me crying the night you got it.”
Mom’s face changed.
Of course.
Family secrets were apparently passed around me like dishes at Thanksgiving.
Kathy crossed her arms.
“You told me you were afraid to send it.”
“I was.”
“I told you Emma deserved the truth.”
“And then you did nothing for five years.”
Kathy flinched.
I stood.
“Stop arguing about who failed me less.”
That ended it.
I turned to Kathy.
“How did you find me?”
“Facebook.”
I almost laughed.
Of course.
I had spent years assuming changing my phone number had made me invisible.
Apparently all it took was knowing my married name—
except I had never married.
Which meant something else.
“My profile didn’t use my maiden name.”
Kathy looked uncomfortable.
“No.”
“How did you find me?”
She looked at Mom.
Mom slowly sat down.
“Kathy.”
“What?”
“Tell her.”
Kathy’s face softened.
“You were in a newspaper.”
“What?”
“When you graduated nursing school.”
I had earned my BSN six years after leaving Ohio.
A small local paper had run a piece about scholarship students.
There had been a photograph.
Me holding three-year-old Leo.
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“Did my parents?”
Kathy looked at them.
Mom whispered, “Yes.”
I couldn’t speak for several seconds.
They had seen me.
They had seen Leo.
Six years earlier.
They knew I was alive.
Knew I had become a nurse.
Knew their grandson existed.
And they still never called.
Leo looked at Grandma.
“You knew about me?”
Her tears started again.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come?”
No adult should ever have to answer that question from a child.
Mom tried.
“Because your mother had built a life.”
“That’s not an answer,” Leo said.
He sounded like me.
Dad stepped in.
“I wanted to.”
I turned.
“What?”
He looked ashamed.
“I drove there once.”
My breath caught.
“When?”
“About five years ago.”
“To my apartment?”
He nodded.
“You never knocked.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I sat across the street for almost two hours.”
Of course.
Another parent watching me from a car.
My life apparently had an entire audience unwilling to walk ten feet.
“I saw you come home with Leo.”
Dad’s voice broke.
“You had groceries in both arms. He was wearing a red backpack.”
I remembered that backpack.
Dinosaurs.
He had refused to carry anything else for an entire year.
“You looked happy.”
“So you left?”
“I thought showing up would be selfish.”
I wanted to scream.
Maybe it would have been selfish.
Maybe I would have slammed the door.
But once again, they had made my decision for me.
Aunt Kathy pulled out her phone.
“I sent one picture to the law firm.”
“Why?”
“Because Linda told me Daniel might be alive.”
Mom stared at her.
“I told you that in confidence.”
“You were all obsessed with confidence.”
Kathy’s voice cracked.
“I was tired of watching everyone protect secrets instead of people.”
That silenced us.
Leo looked at me.
“Can we meet him now?”
Daniel.
My heart started pounding.
I checked the time.
He was staying at a hotel fifteen minutes away.
I had told him I would call when Leo was ready.
I wasn’t sure I was ready.
But this wasn’t only about me anymore.
I picked up my phone.
Before I could dial, someone knocked.
Three slow knocks.
Nobody moved.
Leo looked toward the door.
I already knew.
Daniel had promised not to come until I called.
Which meant if he was standing there now, something had changed.
Dad opened the door.
A man stood on the porch.
Ten years older.
Broader in the shoulders.
A pale scar near his jaw that hadn’t been there before.
But the eyes were exactly the same.
Gray-green.
Gold around the pupils.
Leo stood behind me.
Daniel saw him.
His face broke.
Then he whispered:
“Leo.”
My son stared at the stranger who somehow already knew his name.
And Daniel said:
“I came early because there’s one more thing your family needs to know before tonight.”
May you like
He looked directly at my father.
“Jacob Vale wasn’t the person who ordered the warehouse fire.”
