Chapter 3
I didn’t open the door.
Thomas waited with his hands at his sides. His suit looked different under the hallway light, less polished and more severe. He had driven from the restaurant to my apartment without asking where I lived, which meant he already knew.
My mother was still on the phone.
“Emily?” she said. “Who’s there?”
“Someone from work.”
The lie came easily. That scared me more than the knocking.
Thomas raised one hand and knocked again.
“Emily, I’d like to speak with you.”
I stepped away from the door. “You can speak from there.”
His silence told me he hadn’t expected me to answer.
“I’m not here to threaten you,” he said.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I know you have the photograph.”
I looked at the coffee table. My locket lay beside the phone, and the image of Margaret with the newborn was open on the screen.
“Then you know I’m not letting you in.”
“Your involvement with Margaret is more complicated than you understand.”
“That’s what everyone keeps saying instead of explaining.”
He exhaled through his nose. “This isn’t a safe way to handle it.”
“Showing up at my apartment isn’t safe.”
The hallway stayed quiet. Somewhere downstairs, a door closed. I imagined one of my neighbors coming home with grocery bags, seeing a man in a suit outside my door, and deciding not to ask questions.
Thomas lowered his voice. “You should give me the photograph.”
“No.”
“You don’t know the person who gave it to you.”
“I don’t know you either.”
That hit him. His face tightened, and for the first time I saw something underneath his fear that looked like shame.
“Margaret is not well enough for this.”
“She was standing when you left.”
“You think this is a joke?”
“No. I think you’re trying to decide what I’m allowed to know.”
He put his palm against the door. I could see the shadow of it beneath the frame.
I moved back another step.
“Take your hand off my door,” I said.
He did.
My mother’s voice came through the phone. “Emily, call me back right now.”
I ended the call.
For a moment, I considered opening the door just enough to see if he would tell me something real. Then I remembered the way he had stood between me and the window. The way Margaret had stopped speaking when he entered the restaurant. The way he had said family matter as if the words belonged to him.
“I’m not meeting you alone,” I said.
“I’m not asking for a meeting.”
“You’re here.”
He had no answer.
I took a picture of the peephole view with my phone. Thomas saw the movement through the glass.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping a record.”
His expression hardened. “You’re making a serious mistake.”
“Maybe. But it’ll be mine.”
He stood there another few seconds, then turned and walked toward the stairs.
I waited until I heard the outside door close before I moved.
My hands were shaking. I poured water into a glass and drank half of it too fast. Then I called my mother back.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That man sounded like trouble.”
“He said he knows about the photograph.”
“Emily, listen to me. You don’t owe those people anything.”
I looked at the locket.
“I know.”
But the truth was that I owed myself an answer.
I texted Margaret instead of calling.
I need one private conversation. No Thomas. Public place. You can bring the locket, but no papers unless you’re willing to let me read them.
She replied after nearly ten minutes.
I agree. I’m sorry he came to your apartment.
I typed, Why did he know where I live?
I deleted it before sending.
The man from the black car called at 9:17.
His number had been written beneath the address. I had saved it without realizing I’d done so.
“Hello?”
“You saw the writing,” he said.
His voice was older than I expected, rough but controlled.
“I saw my name.”
“And the date.”
“Yes.”
“That photograph was taken the day the lockets were separated.”
I gripped the phone. “Who are you?”
“Someone who should’ve spoken sooner.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
I stood beside the window, watching headlights move across the parking lot below. “Why bring it to me now?”
“Because Margaret saw you before Thomas could stop her.”
The answer made my stomach tighten.
“What does Thomas know?”
The man was quiet.
Then he said, “Enough to be afraid.”
The call ended.
I opened a blank email and wrote to the county records office. I asked how to request my original birth record and whether any sealed adoption or guardianship entry existed under my name and date of birth.
I didn’t know if they would answer. I didn’t know what name would be on the record.
Before I sent it, Margaret called.
I almost let it go to voicemail.
“Emily,” she said when I answered. Her voice was thin. “I know you have every reason not to trust me.”
I said nothing.
“I won’t ask you to forgive me. I only want you to hear what I remember.”
“What do you remember?”
A long silence followed.
“I remember giving you the locket,” she said. “I remember believing I’d see you again.”
The sentence left a space between us.
I looked at the silver chain in my hand.
“When?”
She didn’t answer right away.
“Before you were taken from the hospital,” she said.
My breath stopped.
“Who took me?”
“I don’t know.”
Behind her voice, I heard something strike a hard surface. Maybe a glass. Maybe a chair.
“Margaret,” I said, “what does Thomas have to do with it?”
She began to speak, then stopped.
Finally, she said, “I don’t know how much of the truth he’ll let me tell.”
I sent the email to the county records office.
Then I wrote down the man's number, Margaret's number, Thomas's name, the address on the note, and every detail I could remember from the photograph.
I put the paper beneath my locket.
May you like
For the first time, the object around my neck didn’t feel like proof that I belonged to someone else.
It felt like evidence I could follow.
