Chapter 9 - THE BROTHER WHO HAD NO NAME
I was thirty-eight years old when I learned I had a fifteen-year-old brother.
For a moment, the number seemed impossible.
Fifteen.
A boy old enough to attend high school.
Old enough to have friends.
Old enough to believe whatever the adults around him told him.
And I'd never known he existed.
Lily stared at the letter.
Then slowly signed:
Mom had another baby?
I nodded.
Apparently.
She looked devastated.
Why didn't she tell us?
I didn't know.
Rebecca examined the available records.
The boy had been registered under the name Benjamin March.
His guardian was listed as Eleanor March.
A woman whose identifying information matched several details connected to our mother.
But the documents were incomplete.
We needed proper verification.
A search through social service records identified a boy named Benjamin living with a foster family outside Trenton.
He was fifteen.
Quiet.
An excellent student.
And deeply interested in drawing.
That last detail nearly undid me.
Lily had drawn constantly as a child.
Birds.
Bridges.
Churches.
The two of us standing beside a house we could never afford.
Now Benjamin's school records described the same interest.
The resemblance was impossible to ignore.
Through an appropriate family services process, Benjamin was told that possible relatives had been located.
He wasn't pressured to meet us.
He was given time.
Two days later, he agreed to a video call.
When his face appeared on the screen, my chest tightened.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
Our mother's expression.
He looked at me cautiously.
"You're Dominic?"
I nodded.
"Yes."
He glanced toward Lily.
"And that's Lily?"
She smiled and signed hello.
Emma interpreted when Benjamin didn't understand.
The boy looked amazed.
"My mother used to sign."
My stomach tightened.
"She did?"
Benjamin nodded.
"She taught me a few things."
Then he looked down.
"Are you really my brother?"
I swallowed.
"We believe so. We're having the records checked."
He nodded slowly.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Benjamin said something that broke my heart.
"Mom told me you were good people."
I stared.
"She talked about us?"
"All the time."
Lily began crying.
I couldn't speak.
The independent identification process later confirmed our family relationship.
Benjamin was our brother.
But the search for Eleanor remained unresolved.
Her last documented contact was eighteen months earlier.
Then investigators recovered a bank withdrawal made under her legal identity.
Dated only three weeks before our restaurant meeting.
My pulse quickened.
Someone had used her account.
And surveillance footage showed a woman leaving the bank.
A woman with auburn hair.
A small scar near her right eyebrow.
My mother.
Alive.
Then the camera captured the man accompanying her.
Vincent Marlow.
May you like
He held her arm tightly.
And when she tried to move away, he pulled her back toward the car.
