Chapter 3 - “Years before she found me.”
“And?”
“She never received the letters.”
“Why not?”
Nora looked almost apologetic.
“Because someone sent them back.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
She opened her canvas bag, took out another worn envelope, and handed it to me.
This one wasn't addressed to me.
It was addressed to Genevieve Vale.
Across the front, in faded black ink, someone had written:
RETURN TO SENDER. DO NOT CONTACT THIS FAMILY AGAIN.
The handwriting wasn't Genevieve's.
But I had seen it before.
Many times.
At Christmas.
On birthday cards.
On the documents settling Genevieve's mother's estate.
It belonged to Arthur Vale.
The man Genevieve had spent her life believing was her father.
And suddenly the question wasn't only where Samuel Bell had gone.
It was why a man who supposedly knew nothing about Genevieve's biological family had worked so hard to keep them away.
Arthur Vale had been dead for nine years, and yet by breakfast the next morning, he had become the most present man in my house.
I put Samuel's returned letter beside Genevieve's on my desk.
One belonged to a wife I had loved.
One belonged to a man I had never met.
Between them sat a family history that had been edited before I ever entered it.
Prescott stood across from me.
“We found several Samuel Bells.”
“He changed his name.”
“Nora gave me what she remembers. Birth year. His mother's first name. Schools his father may have mentioned.”
“And?”
Prescott opened a folder.
“One possibility.”
He slid a photograph across the desk.
The man in it was standing outside a small music store in Madison, Wisconsin.
Samuel Reed.
Age forty-one.
Owner of Reed & String, a repair shop specializing in violins and guitars.
No criminal history.
No obvious connection to Chicago.
A wife who had died five years earlier.
One adult stepdaughter studying in Minnesota.
I looked at the photograph.
He had Genevieve's eyes.
Not exactly.
But enough that I noticed before Prescott said anything.
“You see it too.”
“Yes.”
“Are we sure?”
“No.”
I disliked that answer, but I was learning to live in a world filled with them.
“Phone number?”
Prescott handed it over.
I reached for my phone.
Then stopped.
Two days earlier, I would have had someone drive to Madison.
Samuel would have been located, brought into a room, and given every relevant fact as efficiently as possible.
That was how my world worked.
Find the problem.
Apply pressure.
Get the answer.
But Nora's voice returned to me.
That doesn't make me your responsibility.
Then Genevieve's.
Family can also be something you discover late and still choose to love.
I put the phone down.
“Ask Nora to come in.”
She arrived wearing one of Odette's sweaters.
I noticed because it was too large and because Odette had apparently already begun adopting her.
Nora looked at Samuel's photograph.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then she touched the corner of the page.
“I think it's him.”
“You haven't seen him since childhood.”
“Not since I was nine.”
“You're sure?”
“No.”
At least everyone was consistent.
I told her what Prescott had found.
When I finished, I expected relief.
Instead, Nora looked uneasy.
“You can't just appear at his shop.”
“Why not?”
“Because he tried to contact Genevieve and was rejected.”
“Arthur rejected him.”
“He may not know that.”
“Then we'll explain.”
“You don't know what he believes.”
I leaned back.
“Do you have another suggestion?”
“Yes.”
She pushed the photograph toward me.
“I call him.”
I almost refused automatically.
Then I stopped myself.
“Why you?”
“Because if he is Samuel, I'm not a stranger asking him for something.”
“You haven't spoken in twenty-six years.”
“Which makes me less of a stranger than you.”
I didn't enjoy the logic.
Unfortunately, it was sound.
She called from my office.
I stayed.
Not because I distrusted her.
At least, not entirely.
The phone rang four times.
A man answered.
“Reed & String.”
Nora's hand tightened around the phone.
“May I speak to Samuel?”
“This is Sam.”
She closed her eyes.
“My name is Nora Bell.”
Silence.
Long enough that I thought the call had ended.
Then the voice said, “Nora?”
Her eyes opened.
“Yes.”
Another silence.
“You found me.”
“I've been trying.”
“I know.”
That surprised her.
“How?”
“Your message reached me three years ago.”
“You never answered.”
“No.”
Nora lowered her eyes.
“Okay.”
There was no accusation in it.
Just hurt.
Samuel heard it anyway.
“I wasn't ready.”
“I understand.”
“No,” he said. “You probably don't. But I'm sorry.”
Nora looked toward me.
I had the strange sensation of witnessing something I had no right to see.
“I need to ask you about Genevieve,” she said.
Samuel didn't respond immediately.
Then: “Is she all right?”
Nora closed her eyes again.
My chest tightened.
He didn't know.
“Sam,” she said gently, “Genevieve died two years ago.”
A small sound came through the speaker.
Not dramatic.
Just breath leaving someone.
“I didn't know.”
“I know.”
“What happened?”
Nora looked at me.
I shook my head.
Not because it was secret.
Because there was too much to put into one call.
“She was ill.”
Samuel was quiet.
Then he asked the question that changed the room.
“Her children?”
Nora's gaze snapped to mine.
“You know about them?”
“She wrote to me.”
I stood.
“When?” Nora asked.
“About four years ago.”
My skin went cold.
Genevieve had contacted him.
“She said she had twins,” Samuel continued. “A boy and a girl.”
Nora's voice became careful.
“Did you answer?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“That I didn't want to reopen everything.”
He hesitated.
“But I wrote again later.”
“Why?”
“Because I changed my mind.”
Nora looked at the returned letter on my desk.
“Did you ever hear from her?”
“No.”
I picked up the envelope.
Arthur's handwriting seemed darker than before.
Nora told Samuel about Jonah and Blythe.
Not every detail.
Only what mattered.
They were ill.
Doctors were searching for a stem-cell donor.
Biological relatives could provide information.
There were no guarantees.
When she finished, Samuel didn't speak for several seconds.
Then he asked, “Are you asking me to be tested?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“I'll do it.”
I hadn't expected the answer to come so easily.
Nora hadn't either.
“You don't have to decide immediately.”
“I already did.”
“Sam—”
“Whatever happened between our parents has nothing to do with two children.”
He said it simply.
As if there had never been another possible answer.
Franklin arranged for testing in Madison that afternoon.
Nora stayed another night.
Then another.
By the fourth morning, she stopped telling us she was leaving.
Odette found her work anyway.
Not official work.
Odette did not believe in waiting for paperwork before assigning someone a useful task.
Nora reorganized the small library Genevieve had built for the twins.
She helped Blythe make paper flowers.
She repaired a tear in Jonah's favorite stuffed dog so neatly that he inspected the stitches and declared her “better than Dad at surgery.”
“I have never performed surgery,” I told him.
“Exactly.”
Nora laughed.
It was the first time I heard her laugh without restraint.
For a few seconds, the room changed.
Not into what it had been before Genevieve died.
I had stopped believing houses could return to what they had been.
But perhaps they could become something else.
Something worth staying in.
That afternoon, I found Nora in the conservatory going through one of Genevieve's old photo boxes.
She looked guilty.
“Odette said I could.”
“Odette thinks she owns the house.”
“She may.”
“She doesn't.”
Nora held up a photograph.
Genevieve at twenty-four.
Barefoot in the kitchen.
Flour on her cheek.
Laughing at something outside the frame.
“Did you take this?”
“Yes.”
Nora looked at me.
“She was happy.”
It sounded less like a question than a conclusion.
“Most days.”
“Did she ever talk about Arthur?”
“Sometimes.”
“Was she angry when she learned he wasn't her biological father?”
“Confused.”
Nora looked down.
“She told me she didn't want the truth to erase what he'd been to her.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She also said he could be controlling.”
I nearly laughed.
“That sounds like me.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“You control situations,” Nora said. “Arthur controlled information.”
I didn't know whether that distinction made me feel better.
She set the photograph down.
“Genevieve told me Arthur believed protecting someone meant deciding what they were allowed to know.”
The sentence stayed with me.
Because there was something uncomfortable in it.
Not about Arthur.
About me.
“How different am I?” I asked.
Nora seemed surprised.
I wished I could take the question back.
May you like
Instead she thought about it.
“You let me through the gate.”
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