“If I can see you, they can see you.”
I rock back on one foot, tug at the curtains, leaving a slit between them. Check the parlor. As they were.
“Just come,” I say. “Please. You’re not . . .”
“What?”
“You’re— When can you leave your house?”
Another pause. I see him inspect his phone, press it to his ear again. “My parents watch The Good Wife at ten. I can maybe go out then.”
Now I check my phone. Twenty minutes. “All right. Good.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes.” Don’t alarm him. You’re not safe. “But there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“It’d be easier for me to come over tomorrow.”
“It can’t wait. Really—”
I glance downstairs. Jane is gazing at her lap, clutching a bottle of beer.
Alistair is gone.
“Hang up the phone,” I say, my voice leaping.
“Why?”
“Hang up.”
His mouth falls open.
His room bursts into light.
Behind him stands Alistair, his hand on the switch.
Ethan spins, arm dropping to one side. I hear the line go dead.
And I watch the scene in silence.
Alistair looms in the doorway, speaking. Ethan steps forward, raises his hand, wags the phone.
For a moment they stand still.
Then Alistair strides toward his son. Takes the phone from him. Looks at it.
Looks at Ethan.
Moves past him, to the window, glaring. I withdraw farther into my bedroom.
He spreads his arms, folds a shutter over either half of the glass. Presses them tight.
The room is sealed shut.
Checkmate.
92
I turn from the curtains and stare into my bedroom.
I can’t imagine what’s happening over there. Because of me.
I drag my feet to the stairwell. With each step I think of Ethan, behind those windows, alone with his father.
Down, down, down.
I reach the kitchen. As I rinse a glass at the sink, a low burr of thunder sounds, and I peep through the blinds. The clouds are scudding faster now, the tree branches flailing. The wind is picking up. The storm is coming.
I sit at the table, nursing a merlot. silver bay, new zealand, the label reads, below a little etching of a sea-tossed ship. Maybe I can move to New Zealand, start fresh there. I like the sound of Silver Bay. I’d love to sail again.
If I ever leave this house.
I walk to the window and lift a slat; rain is prickling the glass. I look across the park. His shutters are still closed.
As soon as I return to the table, the doorbell rings.
It rips through the silence like an alarm. My hand jolts; wine slops over the brim of the glass. I look at the door.
It’s him. It’s Alistair.
Panic ambushes me. My fingers dive into my pocket, clutch the phone. And with the other hand I reach for the box cutter.
I stand and cross the kitchen slowly. Approach the intercom. Brace myself, look at the screen.
Ethan.
My lungs relax.
Ethan, rocking on his heels, arms wrapped around himself. I press the buzzer and turn the lock. An instant later he’s inside, his hair sparkling with raindrops.
“What are you doing here?”
He stares. “You told me to come.”
“I thought your father . . .”
He closes the door, moves past me into the living room. “I said it was a friend from swimming.”
“Didn’t he check your phone?” I ask, following him.
“I saved your number under a different name.”
“What if he’d called me back?”
Ethan shrugs. “He didn’t. What’s that?” He’s looking at the box cutter.
“Nothing.” I drop it into my pocket.
“Can I use your bathroom?”
I nod.
While he’s in the red room, I tap at my phone, ready my move.
The toilet flushes, the faucet gushes, and he’s walking toward me again. “Where’s Punch?”
“I don’t know.”
“How’s his paw?”
“Fine.” Right now, I don’t care. “I want to show you something.” I press the phone into his hand. “Hit the Photos app.”
He looks at me, brow furrowed.
“Just open the app,” I repeat.
As he does, I watch his face. The grandfather clock starts to toll ten o’clock. I’m holding my breath.
For a moment, nothing. He’s impassive. “Our street. At sunrise,” he says. “Or—wait, that’s west. So it’s sunse—”
He stops.
There it is.
A moment passes.
He lifts his wide eyes to me.
Six tolls, seven.
He opens his mouth.
Eight. Nine.
“What—” he begins.
Ten.
“I think it’s time for the truth,” I tell him.
93
As the last deep bell rings, he stands before me, barely breathing, until I grasp his shoulder and steer him toward the sofa. We sit, Ethan still holding the phone in his hand.
I say nothing, merely gaze at him. My heart is going wild, like a trapped fly. I fold my hands in my lap to keep them from trembling.
He whispers.
“What?”
Clears his throat. “When did you find that?”
“Tonight, right before I called you.”
A nod.
“Who is she?”
He’s still looking at the phone. For a moment I think he hasn’t heard me.
“Who is—”
“She’s my mother.”
I frown. “No, the detective said that your mother—”
“My real mother. Biological.”
I stare. “You’re adopted?”
He says nothing, just nods again, eyes cast low.
“So . . .” I lean forward, rake my hands through my hair. “So . . .”
“She— I don’t even know how to begin.”
I close my eyes, push my confusion aside. He needs to be guided. This I can do.
I angle my body toward him, smooth the robe along my thighs, look at him. “When were you adopted?” I ask.
He sighs, sits back, the cushions exhaling beneath his weight. “When I was five.”
“Why so late?”
“Because she was an—she was on drugs.” Halting, like a foal taking its first steps. I wonder how many times he’s said it before. “She was on drugs and really young.”
That explains why Jane looked so youthful.
“So I went to live with my mom and dad.” I study his face, the tip of tongue glossing his lips, the shimmer of rain at his temples.
“Where did you grow up?” I ask.
“Before Boston?”
“Yes.”
“San Francisco. That’s where my parents got me.”
I resist the impulse to touch him. Instead I take the phone from his hand, set it on the table.
“She found me once,” he continues. “When I was twelve. She found us in Boston. She showed up at the house and asked my dad if she could see me. He said no.”
“So you didn’t get to talk to her?”
“No.” He pauses, breathes deep, his eyes bright. “My parents were so mad. They told me that if she ever tried to see me again—that I should tell them.”
I nod, sit back. He’s speaking freely now.
“And then we moved here.”
“But your father lost his job.”
“Yeah.” Wary.
“Why was that?”
He fidgets. “Something with his boss’s wife. I don’t know. They were screaming about it a lot.”
It’s all super-mysterious, Alex had gloated. Now I know. A little affair. Nothing special. I wonder if it was worth it.
“Right after we moved in, my mom went back to Boston to take care of some stuff. And to get away from my dad, I think. And then he went up. They left me alone, just for the night. They’d done it before. And she showed up.”
“Your birth mother?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
He sniffles. Swipes at his nose. “Katie.”
“And she came to your house.”
“Yeah.” Another sniffle.
“When? Exactly?”
“I don’t remember.” Shaking his head. “No, wait—it was Halloween.”
The night I met her.
“She told me she was . . . ‘clean,’” he says, pinching the word like it’s a wet towel. “She wasn’t doing drugs anymore.”
I nod.
“She said she’d read about my dad’s transfer online and found out we were moving to New York. So she followed us here. And she was waiting to decide what to do when my parents left for Boston.” He pauses, scratches one hand with the other.
“And what happened then?”
“And then . . .” His eyes are shut now. “Then she came to the house.”
“And you spoke to her?”
“Yeah. I let her in.”
“This was Halloween?”
“Yeah. During the day.”