Chapter 8 - The Apartment With Taped Frames
I clocked out with my apron balled in my fist and my name tag still pinned crooked on my shirt. The dining room kept going behind me, glasses clinking, chairs scraping on the tile. Nobody stopped me. That was the strange part. I had expected someone to say something, but the shift just let me go.
That afternoon I rode the bus with my hands in my lap. The windows were streaked from rain earlier in the week. I watched the hotel get smaller behind the water and the parking lot, and I tried not to think about Richard still sitting at table twelve. He had said after my shift. That gave me less than an hour.
My apartment was on the second floor over a dry cleaner. The stairwell always smelled like heat and detergent. I unlocked the door and dropped my bag by the couch and stood there a second, breathing. The place was small enough that I could see everything at once. Kitchen counter with two mugs drying. Work shoes by the door. The frames on top of the dresser.
I hadn't looked at them straight on in months. I kept them dusted, but I didn't study them. Now I carried all three to the kitchen table where the light was better.
The first one was my dad holding me on a pier. I must have been five or six. He was smiling with his eyes squinted against the sun, his arm around my shoulders. His left hand rested on my arm, and there it was. The gold band, the blue stone catching light. It wasn't large in the picture, just a glint, but I knew the shape of it. I'd stared at that photo enough as a kid to memorize where his fingers lay.
The second one was him alone by an old truck. He had his arms crossed. The ring was on his left hand again, clear this time. You could see the setting raised up, the stone dark blue in the daylight. On the back, in my mom's handwriting, it said Thomas, '98. The tape holding the backing was yellowed and peeling.
The third frame wasn't a photograph of him. It was the two of us at a county fair, cotton candy in my hand, his face turned half away from the camera. His hand was on the back of my chair. Again, the ring. Three pictures, three times, same hand.
I sat down hard. My legs felt shaky in a way they hadn't in the dining room.
I pulled the kitchen drawer open for the envelope where I kept what papers I had. Birth certificate copy. A Social Security card worn soft at the edges. A folded obituary clipping from the local paper when Dad died. No marriage certificate. No letters from anyone on his side. Mom had kept things in a shoebox that got lost in our last move before she passed, and I'd never gotten it back. I spread what I had on the table and checked dates.
Birth certificate: Lily Hale, father Thomas Hale. That matched what I'd told Richard. The obituary listed him as survived by daughter Lily, no other family named. There was a gap I hadn't thought about before. No mention of brothers. No mention of where he'd grown up. I realized I didn't actually know where my dad was born. I'd always assumed here, or somewhere close. He'd never said otherwise, but he'd never said much at all.
That scared me more than the manager. What if I brought these photos and Richard looked at them and shook his head? What if the ring was just a similar one? I'd already said the name out loud. I couldn't unsay it. If I was wrong, I'd made a fool of myself in front of a man who could complain to the hotel with one phone call.
I got up and ran water over my wrists to cool down. The faucet rattled. Through the small window over the sink I could see the sidewalk below, kids riding bikes around a parked delivery van. Normal day. I pressed my forehead against the cabinet for a second and made myself think practically.
Copies, not originals. I wasn't carrying those frames back into that dining room. The glass on one was already cracked at the corner. If something spilled, if someone grabbed, if I got fired on the spot and had to shove everything in my bag — I couldn't risk it.
There was a copy shop two blocks down by the bus stop. I slid the photos out of their frames, careful with the tape. My hands were steadier once I had a task. I put each print in between two sheets of printer paper so they wouldn't bend, and slipped them into a grocery bag, then into my tote. The originals I laid flat in the dresser drawer under my folded sweaters, where they would be safe. The papers I left too, except I took a phone picture of the birth certificate. That felt like enough.
The walk to the copy shop felt longer than it was. The sidewalk was cracked and uneven, heat coming up off it. I kept checking the tote strap on my shoulder. Inside, the clerk barely looked up. The machine hummed and threw green light across the glass. I made two copies of each photo, full page, color. When they came out warm, I held them up.
The ring was still there. Smaller, grainier, but there. On his left hand in all three. I felt something loosen in my chest and then tighten again. Proof that I wasn't making it up, at least to myself. Not proof of who Richard was. Just proof that I had seen what I thought I'd seen.
I paid with quarters and folded the copies into a plain folder I'd bought for a dollar. The clerk gave me a rubber band for it without me asking.
Outside, I stood on the sidewalk and looked back toward the bus stop. I had maybe twenty minutes left. My shirt was wrinkled from the shift, my ponytail coming loose. I smoothed my skirt with my palms. Part of me wanted to stay in the apartment, lock the door, put the frames back up and pretend I'd never asked that question.
May you like
But I'd already asked it. And he'd already answered. You are the niece we searched for.
I tightened the strap on my tote and started walking toward the bus. The folder pressed against my side with every step. Originals safe at home. Copies in hand. Whatever happened next, I wouldn't lose what I had.
