Chapter 3
Ryan stared at Melissa’s phone, at the red circle around the little girl’s face. Then he picked up his own phone and stepped toward the window, as if the glass could keep his fear from reaching us.
“Call Arthur,” Melissa said.
Ryan’s thumb stalled over the screen. “He’ll tell us to leave it alone.”
“Then let him say it to all of us.”
I kept June tucked against my chest beneath the hospital blanket. She made a small, breathy sound in her sleep. Ryan looked back at her, and something in his face tightened before he turned away to call.
Arthur answered quickly.
“Ryan,” he said, his voice warm enough to belong at a holiday dinner. “How’s the baby?”
Ryan put him on speaker. “We need to ask you about Nora.”
The warmth disappeared. Not all at once. It was more like a door closing softly, leaving us on the wrong side.
“There was no Nora,” Arthur said.
Melissa pushed herself higher against her pillows. “We have a photograph.”
“You have a photograph of a child. That doesn’t make her your sister.”
Ryan looked down at the old picture beside my knee. “She’s standing with our parents.”
“Your parents had their reasons for keeping certain things private.”
“Then tell us what they were.”
A pause. A faint scrape, like Arthur shifting in his chair. “Claire, you’ve been through a lot. Don’t turn a painful day into a family crisis. Melissa needs rest, not questions.”
Heat rose in my face. He spoke as if I’d brought the fear into the room myself—as if my body hadn’t just spent hours delivering the child he’d called to ask about.
“Don’t use Melissa to shut us up,” I said.
Ryan flinched at my words. Arthur didn’t.
“You’ve always been good at making yourself the center of things, Claire.”
Melissa’s fingers curled into the sheet. “That’s enough.”
The call ended. Ryan lowered the phone but didn’t meet my eyes.
“I’m going to the hall,” he muttered.
He didn’t leave. He stopped just outside the door, shoulders rounded, one hand pressed to the back of his neck. I wanted to call him back. I wanted to shake him until the boy who used to stand beside me came back. Instead, I watched June’s tiny chest rise under the blanket.
A whisper of paper crossed the floor.
Melissa saw it first. She leaned down and caught the folded note before it slipped beneath the bed. Her face changed as she read it.
STOP ASKING ABOUT NORA. —A.R.
The hospital door had stayed closed. I couldn’t tell who had put it there or when. I could tell that someone wanted us to know they could reach us.
Before I could take the note from Melissa, Ryan came back in.
“Arthur’s here,” he said.
He appeared in the doorway a moment later, smiling like a man arriving with flowers. He wore a neat gray coat and a gold watch with a square black face. When he reached to straighten his cuff, I saw the initials A.R. engraved on the clasp.
My stomach pulled tight.
Arthur’s gaze moved over the room, taking in Melissa’s pale face, Ryan’s rigid shoulders, then June in my arms. He smiled at the baby without moving closer.
“You all look exhausted,” he said. “Let’s not make this harder than it has to be.”
Melissa’s voice shook, but she kept it level. “You told Ryan Nora never existed.”
“I told him what he needs to hear.”
“And what do we need to hear?” I asked.
Arthur’s eyes settled on the photograph. “That old picture is not a reason to frighten a new mother.”
He stepped toward it. Ryan moved between him and the bed.
“Don’t,” Ryan said.
For the first time, Arthur’s smile slipped. “You’re tired, son. Your wife needs quiet. Take Claire home. Come with me for a while and let Melissa recover without all this.”
“Melissa is my wife,” Ryan said, though it sounded as if he were reminding himself.
“And June?” Melissa asked.
Arthur finally looked at her. “June is a complication. She doesn’t need to be tangled in something none of you understand.”
Melissa’s mouth parted. Her eyes shone, but she didn’t look away. “She is not a complication.”
The word landed between us, ugly and deliberate. I tightened my arms around June, feeling the hospital blanket bunch under my fingers.
Arthur turned back to Ryan. “You know how this family handles trouble. We don’t drag it into the light for strangers to pick apart.”
“What if we’re the ones who were kept in the dark?” I asked.
His gaze cut toward me. “You’re recovering. You should focus on the baby you carried, not my family.”
“She is my family too,” Melissa said.
Arthur reached for the photograph. Ryan caught his wrist.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Ryan’s hand trembled against Arthur’s sleeve. Arthur looked at his nephew with something colder than anger.
“Let go,” he said.
Ryan did. Arthur snatched the photograph from the blanket and folded it into his coat pocket.
Melissa’s phone was already in her hand. Her thumb moved once, quick and quiet, before Arthur turned toward the door.
“You’ll regret making this a fight,” he said.
“Then stop making it one,” Melissa replied.
Arthur left without another word. The door shut behind him, and his polished shoes carried their steady rhythm down the corridor.
Ryan stared at the empty doorway. “I shouldn’t have let him take it.”
Melissa held out her phone. “I got a picture before he did.”
She opened the saved image. The photograph filled the screen, caught at an angle in the instant Arthur’s hand had swept over it. The picture Ryan had brought was still visible, but beneath its lifted edge was another print, one none of us had seen before.
Ryan leaned closer.
Our mother was holding a baby.
The tiny shoulder turned toward the camera. Even through the blur of Melissa’s hurried photograph, the dark crescent was unmistakable.
May you like
Ryan made a sound like the air had been knocked from him.
I looked from the baby on the screen to June against my chest. Whatever Arthur had tried to take from us, he had left behind enough to prove that he was afraid.
