Chapter 2 - There was no admiration in the words.
No fear either.
Only a quiet caution.
Franklin noticed it too.
“Let's start with Nora,” he said. “And I'll contact the transplant team. Also, Lawson, the twins are medically fragile. Even if we identify a potential donor, we need a path to get them stable enough for the next treatment phase.”
“So ten days is still ten days?”
Franklin took his time answering.
“The prognosis I gave you this morning was based on the options we knew we had this morning.”
That wasn't reassurance.
But it wasn't surrender.
For the first time all day, there was space between those two things.
Odette found me outside the twins' room that evening.
She carried a tray containing tea I hadn't requested and food I hadn't planned to eat.
“You opened the gates,” she said.
Apparently news traveled faster than blood in my house.
“You knew who she was?”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“She applied under her real name. I knew she had experience as a home aide and that she seemed unusually determined.”
“Why didn't you send her away?”
“I tried.”
“That isn't an answer.”
Odette set the tray down.
Then she folded her hands.
“I met Genevieve when she was twenty-three.”
“I know.”
“She arrived at this house carrying three suitcases, two boxes of books, and the firm belief that she could teach you not to frighten dinner guests simply by becoming silent.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Odette did too.
“She was often right.”
“What does that have to do with Nora?”
“Nothing directly.”
Odette's face softened.
“But when a woman stands in the rain for four hours asking only to speak to a family who has stopped listening to almost everyone, I notice.”
I looked through the glass.
Jonah was building something with wooden blocks on the bed tray.
Blythe was coloring beside him.
Franklin had changed their medications enough that they were awake more than they had been that morning.
They looked small.
But they looked like themselves.
That mattered.
“Genevieve had a sister,” I said.
Odette didn't speak for several seconds.
Then: “Did she know?”
“For years.”
“And she didn't tell you?”
“No.”
Odette considered this.
“You're hurt.”
“I don't get hurt.”
“Of course.”
I looked at her.
She raised one eyebrow.
Genevieve had learned that expression from Odette.
“Go home,” I said.
“I live here.”
“Then go somewhere else in the house.”
“Eat the soup.”
She walked away.
I stared at the tray.
Then, because my children had already lost one parent and I had no intention of making starvation my contribution to the family crisis, I ate the soup.
Nora's test results would take time.
That evening, I offered her a guest room.
She stared at me as though I'd suggested she move into the mayor's office.
“I can't stay here.”
“You told Prescott you had nowhere to go.”
“I can find somewhere.”
“With what money?”
Her cheeks reddened.
“That isn't your concern.”
“It became my concern when you walked through my gates carrying my wife's handwriting.”
“That doesn't make me your responsibility.”
I studied her.
Most people accepted help from me too quickly.
Nora seemed offended by the very idea.
“Fine,” I said. “Then consider it payment for information.”
“No.”
“For the medical records.”
“No.”
“For tolerating me.”
That almost made her smile.
Almost.
Finally, she said, “One night.”
“Take two.”
“One.”
“Odette will show you upstairs.”
“I don't need a suite.”
“You'll survive it.”
She picked up her bag.
At the door she stopped.
“Lawson?”
“What?”
“Genevieve talked about you all the time.”
I didn't answer.
“She wasn't hiding me because she didn't love you.”
“Then why?”
Nora looked toward the hallway.
“Because she'd only just learned how to have a sister. She wasn't ready for that relationship to belong to everybody else yet.”
After she left, I remained alone for a long time.
I had spent most of my life believing love meant knowing where everyone was, what they needed, what threatened them, what could be done.
Genevieve had apparently believed love could also mean leaving someone a private room inside herself.
I wasn't sure I liked that.
But for the first time, I wondered whether liking it had ever been the point.
The next morning, Nora met the twins.
I almost refused.
Not because I thought she would harm them.
Because introducing someone connected to Genevieve felt larger than I wanted it to be.
Blythe made the decision for me.
She saw Nora through the glass and asked, “Who's that lady?”
Nora froze in the hallway.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
“Complicated answer,” I said.
Blythe frowned.
“Is she nice?”
I glanced at Nora.
“So far.”
“Then she can come in.”
Six years old, and apparently still issuing household policy.
Nora washed her hands, put on the protective equipment Franklin required, and entered.
She didn't approach too quickly.
She stood near the door.
“Hi.”
Jonah looked up from a puzzle.
“Hi.”
Blythe pointed at Nora's hair.
“You have Mom's color.”
Nora's eyes filled so quickly she had to blink.
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose I do.”
“Did you know our mom?”
Nora looked at me.
I nodded.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Nora pulled a chair closer but didn't sit until Blythe pointed to it.
“She was my sister.”
Jonah stopped moving a puzzle piece.
“Our mom had a sister?”
“She found me when she was grown up.”
Blythe thought about this.
“Were you lost?”
Nora smiled.
“In a way.”
“Did Daddy find you?”
“No.”
Blythe looked at me with mild disappointment.
I had to turn away so she wouldn't see me smile.
Jonah asked, “What did Mom call you?”
“Nora.”
“No. Like a nickname.”
Nora's expression softened.
“Nor.”
Jonah nodded approvingly.
“That's better.”
For twenty minutes, they asked her ordinary questions.
Did Genevieve like broccoli as a child?
Nora didn't know.
Did she snore?
Nora said only a little.
Did she ever get mad?
Very.
Did she sing?
Badly.
That one made Blythe laugh.
And something strange happened in that room.
Genevieve became more than a photograph.
More than the woman my children were gradually forgetting in tiny, unavoidable ways.
Nora remembered the scarf Genevieve always lost.
The way she drank tea after it had gone cold.
How she refused to throw away greeting cards.
How she cried the first time Nora called her “my sister” to a waitress.
Blythe leaned against her pillow.
“Can you tell us another Mom story tomorrow?”
Nora looked at me.
I realized she expected me to answer.
Instead I said, “Ask her.”
Nora swallowed.
“Yes,” she said. “I'd like that.”
At eleven that morning, Franklin called me into the hall.
“I have preliminary typing.”
My pulse changed.
“And?”
“Nora isn't a full match.”
The disappointment arrived so quickly I nearly became angry with her for something her body had never promised.
Franklin continued before I could speak.
“She isn't suitable as the preferred donor based on the initial results.”
“So this was useless.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“She shares several relevant markers. It tells us something about Genevieve's paternal line.”
He handed me a page.
“If Samuel Bell inherited the complementary haplotype we're looking for, he could be worth testing immediately.”
“Could.”
“Yes.”
“I hate that word.”
“I know.”
“Where is he?”
“I thought you were the man who could find anyone.”
I almost told him this wasn't the time for jokes.
Then I realized he wasn't joking.
He was reminding me of my own certainty from the day before.
I called Prescott.
“Find Samuel Bell.”
Nora was standing twenty feet away.
She heard me.
Her expression changed.
“Lawson.”
I covered the phone.
“What?”
“Before you send people looking for him, there's something you need to know.”
“Tell me.”
She glanced toward the twins' room.
Then back at me.
“Samuel doesn't use the name Bell anymore.”
“Fine.”
“And I may know why I couldn't find him.”
My patience tightened.
“Nora.”
She took a breath.
“When Genevieve and I first started talking, she tried too.”
I lowered the phone.
“You said you didn't know where he was.”
“I don't.”
“But Genevieve looked for him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“At first, because she wanted to understand the family.”
“And later?”
Nora hesitated.
That hesitation sent a chill through me.
“Later,” she said, “because she discovered Samuel had already tried to contact her.”
May you like
I stared at her.
“When?”
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