Chapter 2 — The Man in the Photograph
By sunrise, Michael had stopped pretending he wasn't afraid.
He sat in the hospital chair with his injured arm strapped against his chest.
Lily slept beside me.
Neither of us had slept.
The silver pendant lay on the table between us.
Michael stared at it.
“My father wore that symbol.”
“Where?”
“On everything.”
“Business documents?”
“His personal stationery. His cufflinks. His private correspondence.”
“Then why would it be in Lily's blanket?”
“I don't know.”
I looked at him.
“Did your father have secrets?”
Michael laughed without humor.
“My father had an entire second life.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Because I suddenly realized something.
I had been married to Michael for six years.
I thought I knew him.
But perhaps I only knew the version of him his family allowed me to see.
Michael finally looked at me.
“When I was twelve, I found a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“My father holding a baby.”
“Your baby?”
“No.”
His voice dropped.
“A little girl.”
I sat up.
“What girl?”
“I don't know.”
“Where's the photograph?”
“Diane took it.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“She said it was private.”
“And you believed her?”
“I was twelve.”
Michael closed his eyes.
“I asked who the baby was.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me it was my sister.”
I froze.
“You have a sister?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“My father told me never to ask again.”
I looked toward Lily.
“Maybe that was the child Diane was talking about.”
Michael shook his head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the photograph was taken before I was born.”
My heart began pounding.
“Then who was the baby?”
Michael looked at me.
“I don't know.”
A knock came at the door.
Detective Sarah Bennett entered.
She placed a folder on the table.
“We found something.”
She opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Old.
Faded.
Three people stood outside a hospital.
David Bennett.
Diane.
And a younger man I had never seen.
Between them was a baby wrapped in a white blanket.
But on the corner of the blanket was a tiny red mark.
The same mark embroidered onto Lily's blanket.
I stared.
“Who is the man?”
The detective looked at Michael.
“That is the question.”
She placed another photograph beside it.
The same man.
Thirty-seven years earlier.
Holding another infant.
This time, the blanket was red.
Michael whispered:
“That's him.”
“Who?”
“My uncle.”
I frowned.
“You said your father didn't have a brother.”
“He didn't.”
“Then who is he?”
Michael picked up the photograph.
His hands trembled.
“He looks exactly like me.”
Detective Bennett nodded.
“Because according to the hospital records, he was born twelve days before you.”
Silence.
Michael stared at her.
“That's impossible.”
“No.”
She opened another file.
“What's impossible is that his birth certificate lists the same parents as yours.”
I looked at Michael.
“Then you have a brother.”
Detective Bennett shook her head.
“Not exactly.”
She turned the page.
The man's name was:
MATTHEW BENNETT.
Status:
DECEASED.
Date of death:
Thirty-seven years ago.
Michael stared.
“But if he died before I was born…”
The detective looked at him.
“Then why does your father's private medical file contain his blood type?”
I felt Lily move in my arms.
And suddenly I understood.
The blood type.
The photographs.
The pendant.
The secret child.
They weren't separate mysteries.
They were pieces of the same one.
Then Detective Bennett said:
“There's one more thing.”
She slid an envelope toward me.
“Your mother-in-law didn't just try to kill Lily.”
“She erased another child.”
My fingers tightened around the envelope.
“Who?”
The detective looked at Michael.
“Matthew Bennett's daughter.”
Michael's face went blank.
“My brother had a daughter?”
Detective Bennett nodded.
“And according to the records…”
She paused.
“She was born ten months before Lily.”
I stared at Lily.
Ten months.
Exactly.
The same amount of time Lily had been alive.
The same amount of time Diane had been watching her.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A woman's voice whispered:
“Emma?”
“Yes?”
“Your daughter isn't the first child Diane tried to erase.”
“Who are you?”
Silence.
Then:
May you like
“I am the woman who saved the first one.”
The line went dead.
