Chapter 4
At eighteen, I thought those were compliments.
At thirty, I still did.
At forty-five, sitting in a wheelchair while a woman from my brother's past described my childhood more clearly than I ever had, I wasn't so sure.
“Daniel thought I was weak?”
“No.”
Elena shook her head.
“He thought you were trying very hard to be safe.”
I looked toward the envelope.
That sounded worse.
Or perhaps more accurate.
“There's something else,” Elena said.
My gaze lifted.
“When Daniel gave me the letter, he also asked me to keep another item.”
She opened her handbag again.
This time she removed a small object wrapped in tissue paper.
She placed it on the desk.
I unfolded the paper.
Inside was an old brass key.
I frowned.
“What does it open?”
“I don't know.”
I turned it over.
A small metal tag was attached to the ring.
Three numbers were engraved into it.
“Did he say anything?”
“Only that you'd know.”
But I didn't.
I turned the key between my fingers.
A room number?
A locker?
An address?
Nothing surfaced.
“I've never seen it.”
Elena looked surprised.
“He was certain you would understand.”
I looked again.
Old brass.
Worn teeth.
The metal tag scratched with age.
Then something stirred at the edge of memory.
Not recognition.
Almost recognition.
I closed my fist around it.
“Maybe I will.”
Sammy appeared beside my chair.
None of us had heard him approach.
He held out the picture he had been coloring.
“I made you something.”
I took it.
It was a house.
A very large house, though much smaller than mine.
There were four stick figures standing outside.
One had gray hair.
One had long dark hair.
One was clearly Sammy.
And the fourth—
“Who's this?”
“You.”
I examined the figure.
He had drawn me standing.
Rebecca immediately looked uncomfortable.
“Sammy—”
“No,” I said.
I kept studying the picture.
He had not drawn a wheelchair.
For a brief second, grief tightened my throat.
Then Sammy pointed to something beside the house.
“I made a ramp too.”
I looked more closely.
There it was.
A crooked blue line climbing toward the front door.
“In case your legs are still tired,” he explained.
Elena smiled.
Rebecca pressed her lips together.
I looked down at the picture again.
Standing.
Ramp.
Both possibilities occupying the same drawing.
A child's version of hope, apparently, had room for more than one ending.
“Thank you,” I said.
Sammy grinned.
“Can I have a cookie?”
Rebecca sighed.
“There it is.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
The sound startled me.
Sammy looked pleased with himself.
“You said I didn't want money.”
“You don't.”
“Cookies aren't money.”
“A dangerous legal argument.”
He shrugged.
“Grandma says I'm persuasive.”
“You are.”
Rebecca led him toward the kitchen.
Elena stood.
“I should go too.”
I looked at the envelope.
“Thank you.”
She nodded.
At the door, she stopped.
“Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“Whatever is in that letter, remember it was written seventeen years ago.”
I frowned.
“Meaning?”
“People change.”
She rested her hand on the doorframe.
“Sometimes we spend so long remembering who someone was when they hurt us that we forget they may have become someone else.”
After she left, I remained alone.
The envelope lay on my desk.
I did not open it.
Instead, I called my assistant.
Claire answered on the second ring.
“Mr. Caldwell?”
“I need you to cancel tomorrow morning.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Medical appointment?”
“No.”
Another pause.
Claire was far too professional to sound shocked, but I could hear the question anyway.
“For what should I reschedule?”
“Nothing.”
Silence.
“Nothing?”
“I want the morning free.”
“All right.”
“And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Find me someone who can repair an apartment building elevator.”
“Which building?”
I gave her Rebecca's mother's address.
She began typing.
“Anything else?”
I almost told her to locate Daniel.
I could have.
One sentence.
A few keystrokes.
An investigator would begin digging.
Instead I looked at the unopened envelope.
“No.”
I ended the call.
Then I picked up the brass key.
The number continued to bother me.
I wheeled toward the shelves behind my father's portrait.
Most of the books had belonged to him.
Business histories.
Biographies.
Leather-bound classics nobody in our family had ever actually read.
Below them sat several wooden archival boxes I had moved from my father's house after his death.
I hadn't opened them in years.
I pulled the first one onto my lap.
Old tax documents.
Board minutes.
Nothing useful.
The second contained family papers.
My mother's recipe cards.
School photographs.
A program from Daniel's high school graduation.
I held it longer than necessary.
The third box was smaller.
Inside were objects our father had apparently considered worth keeping but not worth displaying.
A watch.
Several foreign coins.
A pocketknife.
Then, beneath a stack of photographs, I found an old hotel receipt.
Lake Geneva.
August 18, 1994.
Room 214.
May you like
My heart began beating faster.
I remembered.
