I looked up.
“What?”
“A son.”
My head spun.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Emily.”
“He died.”
My mouth went dry.
“When?”
“Three days after he was born.”
I looked back at the photograph.
Thomas was smiling in it.
But the smile didn’t look happy.
It looked broken.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because Thomas told me something that night.”
“What?”
Emily’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“He said if I ever tried to prove he was Chloe’s father, I would regret it.”
A chill moved through me.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never asked?”
“I was afraid.”
“You were afraid of Thomas?”
She nodded.
“He had a side to him I had never seen before.”
I studied the photograph.
There was something wrong.
Something I couldn’t explain.
I turned it over again.
The handwriting looked familiar.
Very familiar.
I looked at Emily.
“Who wrote this?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at the date.
March 14.
Then I remembered.
My son had been at the hospital that day.
I remembered because Jason had called me at three in the morning.
“Mom, she’s here.”
I had driven through the rain to the hospital.
I remembered holding newborn Chloe.
I remembered Jason crying.
I remembered him whispering:
“She’s perfect.”
I had believed that moment was the beginning of his life as a father.
Now I wondered if it had been the beginning of a lie.
My phone suddenly rang.
Jason.
I froze.
Emily looked at the screen.
Neither of us spoke.
The phone rang again.
And again.
Finally, I answered.
“Hello?”
“Mom?”
His voice sounded normal.
Warm.
Unaware.
“Yeah, sweetheart.”
“Are you okay?”
I looked at Emily.
She was crying silently.
“I’m fine.”
“You sound strange.”
“I’m just tired.”
There was a pause.
Then Jason said:
“Mom, I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“I need you to come to the house tonight.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“I found something.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did you find?”
Another pause.
Then Jason whispered:
“Dad’s old box.”
My heart stopped.
Jason’s father had been gone for decades.
“What about it?”
“I opened it.”
“And?”
“I found letters.”
“What letters?”
His breathing became uneven.
“Letters addressed to you.”
I looked at Emily.
Her face had gone completely white.
Jason continued.
“And Mom…”
“Yes?”
“One of them has Thomas’s name on it.”
The phone slipped slightly in my hand.
I whispered:
“What does it say?”
“I haven’t read it yet.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t read anything until I get there.”
“Why?”
I looked at Emily.
Because suddenly I understood something.
The DNA test wasn’t the beginning of this story.
It was the beginning of the truth finally catching up with all of us.
“Just wait for me,” I said.
Jason agreed.
Before hanging up, he said one last thing.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“I think Dad knew.”
The call ended.
I stood completely still.
Emily was staring at me.
“What did he say?”
I looked at her.
“Jason thinks his father knew.”
Emily’s eyes filled with terror.
Then she whispered:
“Eleanor… you need to understand something.”
“What?”
“Thomas wasn’t the only person who knew.”
I felt my blood turn cold.
“Who else?”
Emily looked toward the bedroom door.
Then she whispered a name I had never expected to hear.
“Your husband.”
I couldn’t move.
My husband had been gone for twenty-four years.
Dead for nineteen.
And suddenly I understood that the secrets destroying my family had begun long before Jason ever met Emily.
I grabbed my coat.
Emily stood.
“Where are you going?”
“To Jason.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
“Eleanor—”
“You’ve hidden enough from my son.”
She stopped.
I opened the bedroom door.
Then I turned back.
“But you’re coming tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to tell Jason everything.”
Emily began crying again.
“And if I refuse?”
I looked directly at her.
“Then I will.”
I walked downstairs alone.
But before I reached the front door, my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One message.
Stop looking for the truth.
I stared at the screen.
A second message appeared.
You have no idea what happened to your son.
And then a third.
Ask him about the night he was born.
PART 4
I stared at the message until the words stopped looking like words.
Ask him about the night he was born.
For a moment, I wondered whether the sender meant Jason.
Then another thought struck me.
What if they meant Thomas?
I slipped the phone into my coat pocket and drove to Jason’s house.
The entire ride, my hands stayed tight around the steering wheel.
Rain had started falling over Boston, turning the streets into blurred ribbons of headlights and reflections.
Twenty-four years earlier, I had driven through rain to bring my husband home from the hospital.
Nineteen years earlier, I had driven through rain to identify his body.
And now, after all these years, I was driving through rain again because the dead man’s secrets were apparently still alive.
When I arrived at Jason’s house, his front door was already open.
“Jason?”
“Mom. I’m in the kitchen.”
I found him sitting at the table.
A cardboard box rested in front of him.
The same box his father had kept locked for years.
Jason looked exhausted.
His wedding ring was still on his finger.
His work shirt was wrinkled.
He looked like the little boy who used to wait for me outside the food truck after school.
Except now he was a grown man with a family of his own.
And I knew something about his life that he didn’t.
At least, not yet.
“Show me the letters.”
He slid the first envelope across the table.
It was old and yellowed.
My name was written across the front.
Eleanor Parker.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
My husband’s.
I sat down.
“Where did you find this?”
“In the bottom of the box.”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
I stared at him.
“Seven?”
He nodded.
“Some are addressed to you. Some to Thomas. One to Jason.”
My heart stopped.
“Your name?”
“Yes.”
I picked up the letter addressed to me.
The envelope had never been opened.
My fingers shook as I tore it.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
I read the first sentence.
Then I had to stop.
My vision blurred.
“What does it say?” Jason asked.
I couldn’t answer.
He reached for the paper.
I handed it to him.
His eyes moved across the page.
Then his face changed.
“Mom…”
I took it back.
The letter said:
Eleanor,
If you’re reading this, then I failed to tell you the truth while I was alive.
I was afraid.
Not of Thomas.
Of what Thomas knew.
My breathing became shallow.
The next line was worse.
The girls are not connected to Jason in the way everyone believes.
Jason stood.
“What girls?”
I looked at him.
He was staring at me.
“What does that mean?”
I folded the letter.
“Sit down.”
“Mom.”
“Please.”
