The House Beside the Water

Part 2
The car carried me away from the hotel, but it could not carry the sound of Alexander shouting my name out of my mind.

I sat with one hand pressed to the cold window and the other over my stomach, trying to breathe slowly enough for the baby to feel none of the fear tightening my chest.

The driver glanced at me in the mirror.

“Would you like me to take you somewhere specific, Mrs. Moretti?”

I opened my mouth, but my voice failed me.

Then the baby shifted beneath my palm, a small, unmistakable flutter.

“Take me to my mother’s house,” I managed.

It had been empty since my mother died, a modest house by the lake on the quieter edge of the city.

I had not stayed there in years, but I still remembered the way the old screen door creaked and how the

morning light gathered on the water.

The driver turned toward the lake.

Behind us, the hotel disappeared into the dark.

By the time we reached the house, the anger that had carried me through the ballroom had begun to drain away, leaving only exhaustion and a deep, bewildered ache.

I stepped inside with my overnight bag and stood in the dim hallway, surrounded by familiar shapes

covered in dust sheets.

My mother’s blue ceramic bowl still sat on the narrow table by the door.

I touched its rim, and the memory of her voice rose so clearly I almost expected her to come from the kitchen and ask why I looked so pale.

Instead, I was alone.

I called Daniel, my attorney, and told him I had reached the house safely.

“Are you certain you want to proceed tonight?” he asked, his voice steady but gentle.

“I’m certain I can’t go back to pretending everything is fine,” I said.

“That isn’t quite the same thing.”

“No,” I admitted. “It isn’t.”

He did not press me.

He explained that he would prepare the initial divorce filing in the morning and that we could discuss a careful arrangement for communication about the pregnancy.

“I don’t want to make decisions about the baby out of anger,” I said.

“That’s a good place to start,” Daniel replied. “You can set boundaries without deciding the rest of your child’s life tonight.”

I looked down at my stomach.

“I told him he wouldn’t be a father.”

“You were hurt, Claire.”

“I meant it when I said it.”

“You may have meant that you don’t want him near you right now,” Daniel said. “Those are not necessarily the same words.”

I had no answer.

After we hung up, I walked through the small house, opening curtains and switching on lamps until the rooms seemed less like a place I had abandoned and more like a place I might be able to inhabit again.

In the bedroom, I found my mother’s knitted blanket folded at the foot of the bed.

I wrapped it around my shoulders and sat beside the window, watching the dark water move under a thin wash of moonlight.

Alexander called eleven times before midnight.

I did not answer.

The next morning, his first message was brief.

I need to know you’re safe.

The second came minutes later.

I know I hurt you. Please let me explain.

I read both and put the phone facedown.

There were more messages, but none changed what I had seen: his hand fastening the necklace around Olivia’s throat while the room applauded.

I had spent months telling myself that his gifts to her were business decisions, that the apartment was

temporary, that the late calls were necessary, that the distance between us was a season rather than a choice.

At the auction, the explanations had fallen away.

For the first two days, I concentrated on making the house livable.

I bought groceries, washed the sheets, and set up the little room that had once been my mother’s sewing room as a nursery.

I did not decorate it with the kind of perfect, expensive things Alexander would have chosen.

I found a secondhand wooden cradle and sanded its worn edges by hand.

The work was slow, but it gave my thoughts somewhere to go.

Whenever I felt the baby move, I stopped and rested my palm against my belly.

“Your grandmother would have loved you,” I whispered one afternoon.

The words broke something open in me.

I sat down on the nursery floor and cried until the baby nudged me again, as if reminding me I was not entirely alone.

Daniel came by the following day with papers and a folder of practical forms.

He took off his coat and sat at the kitchen table, careful not to crowd me with his questions.

“You don’t need to sign anything before you’re ready,” he said.

“I know.”

“But if we file, we’ll also establish a channel for communication that keeps things calm and documented.”

“That’s what I want,” I said. “No more arguments in doorways. No more surprises.”

“Then we’ll ask that necessary messages go through me for now, especially anything related to the pregnancy.”

I hesitated.

“Can he ask about the baby?”

“Yes,” Daniel said. “You can decide how and when to respond. A boundary isn’t the same as shutting a door forever.”

I looked toward the window.

The lake was bright that morning, though the sky remained gray.

“I don’t know if I can forgive him.”

“You don’t have to solve forgiveness today,” Daniel replied. “Today, you only have to decide what will help you feel safe.”

I signed the initial papers.

It was not a dramatic moment.

My hand shook once, and Daniel waited until it steadied.

When he left, I did not feel triumphant.

I felt as though I had taken one step onto a bridge without knowing what waited at the other end.

Alexander did not stop trying to reach me.

He sent no flowers or jewelry, and for that I was grateful.

Instead, his messages became simpler.

I’ll respect your space.

Please tell me when you have your next appointment.

I don’t expect you to answer anything else right now.

I did not respond, but I began saving the messages rather than deleting them.

It felt like a small, necessary distinction.

A few days later, I went to my prenatal appointment alone.

The clinic smelled of disinfectant and warm paper, and the waiting room was filled with expectant parents speaking softly over magazines and cups of coffee.

I kept my eyes on the floor until the nurse called my name.

The examination began normally.

The baby’s heartbeat filled the room, quick and strong, and I felt my eyes burn as soon as I heard it.

For a moment, the fear and the humiliation receded.

There was only that steady sound, proof of a life continuing inside me.

Then the doctor studied the scan more closely.

She was kind, careful with her words, but I noticed the pause before she spoke.

“There’s something we should keep an eye on,” she said.

My fingers curled around the edge of the examination table.

“Is something wrong?”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “The images suggest your baby may need to see a specialist after birth. It’s too early to draw conclusions, and many children do very well with the kind of follow-up we’re

discussing.”

I heard the reassurance, but my mind caught on one phrase.

“After birth?”

“Yes. We’ll gather more information and make sure you have the right team in place. For now, I don’t want you to panic.”

I nodded, though panic had already begun to rise like cold water.

“Will the baby be okay?”

“We can’t promise what we don’t know yet,” the doctor said. “But you have time, and you won’t be figuring this out alone.”

That last sentence nearly undid me.

On the drive back, I considered calling Alexander.

Then I imagined his voice, the questions, the possibility that I might hear Olivia’s name or another

explanation I could not bear.

I called Daniel instead.

He listened quietly while I told him what the doctor had said.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Would you like me to help you find out exactly what the next appointment involves?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “And I need to know how to tell Alexander without making this another fight.”

“We can arrange a written update,” he said. “You can share the medical information without opening a conversation about the marriage.”

That evening, I wrote a short message, revised it several times, and sent it through Daniel.

The baby’s doctor wants to monitor something on the scan and may recommend a specialist after birth.

There are no firm conclusions yet.

I’ll share any important updates when I have them.

Alexander’s reply came through less than ten minutes later.

Thank you for telling me.

Please let me know if you need anything.

I read it twice.

It was not an apology, but it was the first time he had answered without arguing about what I had said in

the ballroom.

I hated that some part of me felt relieved.

The next afternoon, Daniel called with news about the company’s records.

He had asked for an accounting of the larger expenses connected to Olivia’s apartment and the gifts, partly because the spending could become relevant to the divorce.

“I want you to be careful about what you assume,” he said. “We’ve only received a portion of the

records.”

“I’m not assuming anything,” I said.

“You’ve mentioned that Alexander said he approved the apartment.”

“He did.”

“Some payments were processed through company accounts, and there are corresponding messages between Olivia and the finance office.”

My stomach tightened.

“What kind of messages?”

“Requests for approval, invoices, confirmations. Some of them are incomplete, and I don’t want to read

more into them than they show.”

“Did Alexander approve the gifts?”

“We don’t know yet.”

I stared at the half-finished cradle in the nursery.

“If he didn’t, why would he tell me he did?”

“That’s a question I can’t answer from these pages,” Daniel said. “I’m trying to establish what happened,

not offer a theory.”

He asked whether I would be willing to review the copies he had received.

I told him to send them.

The packet arrived the next morning, several dozen pages held together with a blue clip.

I spread them across the kitchen table and read slowly, tracing dates and account numbers with my finger.

At first, the records looked like ordinary business paperwork: invoices, expense forms, and brief messages about scheduling and authorization.

Then I found a conversation between Olivia and someone in the finance office.

The subject line read: Residence costs, second quarter.

Olivia’s message was polite and practical.

The apartment lease had been renewed, and she wanted to know whether the payment should be coded

to the executive support account as before.

The reply asked whether Mr. Moretti had requested the change.

Olivia answered that she would handle it and that he did not need to be bothered with the details.

I read the exchange again.

Then I found another message about a watch purchased several months earlier.

The invoice had been sent to the company, not to Alexander’s home.

A note from Olivia said the item was a personal recognition gift and should be charged to the same internal account.

There was no message from Alexander.

There was no instruction from him to buy it.

On another page, a line from a jewelry invoice matched the necklace from the auction.

The payment had gone through a company account several weeks before the event.

A handwritten note in the margin said the expenditure had been approved for the charity auction.

I sat back in my chair, unable to make the pieces fit.

Alexander had raised the paddle himself.

He had stood before hundreds of people and placed the necklace around Olivia’s neck.

Whatever had happened before the auction, he had made that choice in front of me.

But the apartment payments and the watch, the gifts he had told me were his decisions, might not have

been his decisions at all.

I called Daniel.

“Does this prove Olivia arranged them?”

“It suggests she had a role in arranging at least some of them,” he said. “It doesn’t prove Alexander knew nothing. We need the complete records.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I can’t say.”

I looked at the pages scattered across the table.

“She let me believe he was choosing her over me.”

“Or she let him believe the expenses were routine,” Daniel said. “We don’t know enough to draw a conclusion.”

“I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.”

“It may not do either yet.”

After we hung up, I sat in the quiet kitchen while the lake moved beyond the window.

I thought about Alexander defending Olivia in the ballroom.

I thought about his certainty whenever I questioned the apartment and the gifts.

And I thought about the way his face had changed when I removed my ring.

For the first time, another possibility entered my mind: perhaps he had been deceived about more than I

knew.

But that did not undo the necklace.

It did not undo the months of dismissal, or the moment he watched me understand what he had done.

My phone rang.

Alexander’s name appeared on the screen.

I almost let it go to voicemail, but my hand moved before I had decided.

“Claire,” he said when I answered, and his voice sounded tired in a way I had never heard before. “Daniel told me you received some of the company records.”

“I did.”

“Then you know Olivia handled some of the payments.”

“I know what the messages say.”

“I didn’t authorize her to buy you a watch and then make it look as if I had bought it for her.”

I closed my eyes.

“You told me you bought her the apartment.”

“I said I approved it.”

“Those are different things.”

“Yes,” he said after a pause. “They are.”

There was no anger in his voice, only a heaviness that made my own anger feel suddenly less simple.

“Why didn’t you ask questions?” I said.

“I should have.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No,” Alexander replied. “It isn’t.”

I heard him draw a breath.

“I’m not asking you to change your mind. I just need you to know I didn’t make every choice you thought

I made.”

The necklace flashed in my memory, bright beneath the ballroom lights.

“You made that one,” I said.

“Yes.”

Neither of us spoke for a moment.

“I’m sorry about the baby’s scan,” he said at last. “I wish I could have been there.”

“You could have been, if things were different.”

“I know.”

His voice caught on those two words, but he did not ask me to comfort him.

“I’ll send the full records to Daniel,” he continued. “There may be more to explain than I understood.”

“Then find out.”

“I will.”

We ended the call without saying goodbye.

That night, I read the messages again, looking for a clue that might explain Olivia’s careful phrasing.

The oldest payment in the packet was dated before she had officially become Alexander’s assistant.

It was a modest amount, assigned to a discretionary account with a name I did not recognize.

I turned the page, expecting to find a note or a fuller description.

Instead, I found a scanned copy of an old photograph clipped to the back of the file.

My mother stood outside the community clinic where she had once worked, younger than I had ever known her, one hand shading her eyes from the sun.

Beside her was a tall man with silver at his temples.

I recognized him from the portrait in Alexander’s family home.

His father.

At the bottom of the photograph, someone had written a date from more than twenty years earlier.

And beneath it, in my mother’s familiar handwriting, were four words:

He promised to keep it secret.

Part 3 – The Photograph Between Us
I turned the photograph over, searching for another date, a name, anything that might explain my

mother’s words.

The back was blank.

I carried it to the window and held it against the pale afternoon light, as if some hidden writing might

appear when I looked closely enough.

Nothing did.

My mother had worked at the community clinic for years, first as a receptionist and later helping patients

find affordable care.

She had told me stories about that place, about the families who came in worried and left with a plan, but she had never mentioned Alexander’s father.

I knew his face from the large portrait in the Moretti family home, where he stood beside Alexander in a dark suit, one hand resting lightly on his son’s shoulder.

He had died before Alexander and I married.

I had met him only once, at a company dinner, when he was already ill and too tired to stay long.

Now I sat with his photograph in my hands, wondering what he had promised to keep secret.

Daniel arrived that evening with a fuller set of company records.

He found me in the kitchen, the papers from the previous packet still spread across the table.

I showed him the photograph and the handwritten words.

He examined it without touching the writing.

“Do you recognize the clinic?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Do you remember your mother mentioning Mr. Moretti?”

“No.”

I tried to recall the stories she had told me, the names she had dropped over the years.

Nothing came.

“Could it have been connected to one of the public donations?” Daniel asked.

“Maybe, but why would she write that he promised to keep it secret?”

“People keep private matters private for all kinds of reasons.”

His caution was sensible, but I felt the question tugging at me.

“Do the company records say anything about the photograph?”

“Not directly,” he said. “The account attached to the oldest payment was created years before Olivia was

hired, but it appears to have supported staff assistance and community projects.”

“So this may have nothing to do with her.”

“It may. It may not.”

He turned one of the pages toward me.

“The more recent expenses are different. Olivia requested payments for the apartment and several personal gifts through that account. Some were described as recognition awards or executive support.”

“Could Alexander have approved the account without knowing about each payment?”

“He could have. The records show that the account existed under the company’s policies, but we haven’t seen a clear approval from him for every individual expense.”

“Olivia said she would handle the details.”

Daniel nodded.

“That wording matters, but it doesn’t tell us what Alexander understood.”

I looked down at the photograph.

“And the necklace?”

“The auction records show that it was purchased through the company account, then offered for the

fundraiser. Alexander raised the paddle himself, and he chose to give it to Olivia.”

“Even if someone else arranged for it to be bought?”

“Even then.”

His answer was gentle, but firm.

I folded my arms across my stomach.

The distinction mattered.

It did not make the image of Alexander fastening the necklace around Olivia’s neck any less real, but it complicated the story I had been repeating to myself.

Daniel closed the file.

“I’m not asking you to change your boundaries because there may be another explanation. I’m asking you not to let anyone—including Alexander—use uncertainty to hurry you.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Do you want to ask him about the photograph?”

I glanced again at my mother’s handwriting.

Not yet, I thought.

Then I said, “Yes.”

Daniel offered to arrange a brief meeting in a public place, with him present if I wanted.

I considered the suggestion, then shook my head.

“I don’t want to turn this into another confrontation. I can ask him one question.”

“You can,” Daniel said. “And you can end the conversation whenever you need to.”

The next morning, Alexander agreed to meet me at the clinic where I had my prenatal appointments.

The waiting area was quiet between scheduled visits, and I chose a table near the window where the pale winter sun fell across the floor.

Alexander arrived alone.

He looked as though he had slept badly, though his suit was neat and his hair carefully combed.

For a moment, neither of us knew how to greet each other.

Then he said, “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

“I’m not agreeing to anything beyond this conversation.”

“I understand.”

He sat opposite me, keeping his hands folded on the table.

I noticed the familiar restraint in him, the way he used stillness to hold himself together.

It had once reassured me.

Now it made me wonder how much he had kept from me simply by never volunteering what he did not

think I needed to know.

I set the photograph between us.

His eyes fixed on it, and the quiet in his face changed.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was attached to the company records Daniel sent me.”

He did not pick it up.

“Do you know the clinic?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you know my mother?”

“I met her once.”

The answer came quickly, as though it had been waiting behind his teeth.

My chest tightened.

“When?”

“Years ago. My father took me there.”

“Why?”

Alexander looked down at the photograph.

“My father funded part of the clinic’s work. He said they needed help with equipment and patient services.”

“That doesn’t explain why he took you.”

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”

I waited.

He glanced toward the window, then back at me.

“He didn’t tell me much. He said the clinic mattered to someone he respected.”

“Was that my mother?”

“I think so.”

“You think so?”

“I was young. My father was careful about what he shared, especially when it involved other people’s

private lives.”

I heard the echo of the note on the back of the photograph.

He promised to keep it secret.

“Did he tell you what he was keeping secret?”

“No.”

“Did he ever tell you to look after me?”

Alexander’s gaze lifted to mine.

The pause was long enough to become an answer before he spoke.

“He said that if I ever crossed paths with you, I should treat you with kindness.”

I felt the words settle between us, soft and unsettling.

“When did he say that?”

“After I told him I was seeing you seriously.”

I remembered Alexander’s father then, not from the company dinner, but from a brief visit to the hospital after Alexander and I had announced our engagement.

He had shaken my hand and told me he was glad his son had found someone who made him laugh.

I had taken it for a polite welcome.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked.

“Because I didn’t understand the significance. My father made the request, and I thought he was simply

being sentimental.”

“You could have mentioned it.”

“Yes,” he said. “I could have.”

There was no defensiveness in his voice.

I studied him, trying to decide whether I trusted the regret in it.

“Did your father say he knew my mother?”

“He didn’t say much. Only that she had been through a difficult time and had refused help more than once.”

My mouth went dry.

“What kind of help?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he tell you there was money involved?”

“I knew he supported the clinic. I didn’t know that he had helped your mother directly.”

The room seemed suddenly smaller.

I looked down at the photograph again.

“What did he mean when he told you to treat me with kindness?”

“I thought he was asking me to be a decent husband.”

“That’s all?”

“That was all I understood.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t know.”

I wanted to ask more, but the questions had begun to multiply faster than I could organize them.

Instead, I pulled the photograph back toward me.

“I can’t tell whether you’re being honest with me,” I said.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

He lowered his eyes.

“I know I gave you reasons not to trust me. I can’t fix that by telling you how you should feel.”

The answer surprised me enough that I looked up.

He continued carefully.

“I did not know Olivia was using that account for the apartment and those gifts. I should have checked the expenses. I should have listened when you asked me about them instead of telling you that you were

imagining things.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought I had already understood the situation. I trusted Olivia to manage details I didn’t want to

spend time on, and I trusted myself to know when something important was happening.”

His hands tightened together.

“I was wrong.”

The words were plain.

They did not take back the months of dismissal, and they did not erase his choice at the auction.

But for once, he was not asking me to reassure him that he was still a good man.

“I’m not ready to decide what any of this means,” I said.

“I’m not asking you to.”

“And I’m still filing for divorce.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

He met my eyes.

“Yes.”

For a few seconds, the old closeness between us seemed to hover at the edge of the table, a familiar presence that neither of us could safely invite nearer.

Then Alexander said, “I’d like to be involved in the baby’s care, if you’ll allow it.”

I felt my shoulders stiffen.

“I haven’t decided what I’m comfortable with.”

“That’s fair.”

“If there are appointments you want to know about, I can have Daniel send the information.”

“I’d like that.”

“And if we meet, it will be supervised for now.”

“I understand.”

He said it without protest, and I found that harder to dismiss than anger.

I stood, because I could feel my resolve thinning beneath the weight of the conversation.

Alexander rose too, but stayed where he was.

“Claire,” he said, “I’m sorry for what I did at the auction.”

I looked at him.

He did not look away.

“I know it hurt you,” he continued. “I should never have put you in that position.”

“Then why did you?”

He took a breath.

“I don’t have an answer that will make it acceptable.”

“Good,” I said quietly. “Because there isn’t one.”

He nodded.

I left without letting him walk me to the door.

Two days later, I agreed to a short visit at the lake house.

Daniel had advised me to keep the meeting brief and to tell a friend when it began and ended.

Alexander arrived with no flowers, no gifts, and no attempt to turn the visit into a grand gesture.

He brought a small paper bag containing two cups of tea from the café near my mother’s old neighborhood.

“I remembered the ginger one helped when you felt sick,” he said.

I looked at the cup, then at him.

“I can’t accept things from you right now.”

“Of course.”

He set the bag on the table and stepped away from it.

The thoughtfulness touched a part of me I wished were harder to reach.

That was the trouble with grief and love: they did not disappear just because trust had.

We sat in the front room, with the lake visible between the bare branches outside.

At first we spoke only about the pregnancy.

Alexander asked whether the doctor had given me a date for the next scan.

I told him Daniel would send it once the clinic confirmed the schedule.

He nodded and asked no more.

The baby shifted beneath my sweater.

Without thinking, I placed my hand over the movement.

Alexander’s eyes followed the gesture, but he did not reach for me.

“May I?” he asked.

The question was so quiet that I almost missed it.

I hesitated.

Then I nodded.

He sat beside me, leaving a careful space between us, and placed his palm lightly against the curve of my stomach.

The baby moved again, a small roll beneath his hand.

Alexander’s face changed.

All the practiced composure fell away, and something tender and almost disbelieving appeared in its place.

“Hello,” he murmured.

The baby pressed against his palm.

He let out a shaky breath.

“I’m here,” he said, his voice catching. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I looked away before I could see whether he was crying.

For one brief moment, I could imagine another life, one in which the auction had never happened and

we were simply two nervous parents waiting for their child.

The image hurt more than I expected.

Alexander withdrew his hand and returned to his chair.

“Thank you,” he said.

I nodded, unable to answer.

After he left, I stood alone in the quiet room with one hand on my stomach and the other resting on the

back of his chair.

It was possible to believe he loved the baby.

It was possible to believe he was sorry.

Neither possibility told me whether I could trust him again.

The following week, the doctor called with an update.

The scan still did not offer a clear answer, but she recommended that I meet with a pediatric specialist so

I could understand what might be needed after the birth.

I wrote down the clinic’s name and the date of the consultation.

Then I sent the information through Daniel to Alexander.

His reply came quickly.

I’ll be there if you want me there.

I did not answer immediately.

Later that evening, I wrote back that he could attend, but Daniel would also be present and the meeting would focus on the baby.

Alexander replied with a single thank-you.

The appointment was held in a small consultation room with a desk, two chairs, and a shelf of pamphlets about newborn care.

Alexander sat across from me, while Daniel took the chair beside mine.

The specialist explained what the scan might indicate, what tests could be done after birth, and how many babies with similar findings needed only careful follow-up.

I asked questions until my notes filled two pages.

Alexander listened closely, his hands folded and his attention fixed on the doctor.

He did not interrupt when I asked what would happen if the baby needed treatment.

He did not tell me not to worry.

He asked one practical question about how quickly a newborn could be assessed, then wrote down the answer.

On the ride home, Daniel drove while Alexander followed in his own car.

The appointment had gone well, but I felt tired in a way that reached into my bones.

When we reached the lake house, Alexander stopped at the curb and waited while I got out.

“Thank you for letting me attend,” he said.

“You needed to hear the information yourself.”

“I did.”

I turned toward the house.

“Claire,” he said, then stopped.

I waited.

He seemed to reconsider whatever he had meant to say.

“Please let Daniel know if you need anything from me for the next appointment.”

“I will.”

He nodded once and got back into his car.

For the first time since the auction, I watched him drive away without feeling that I needed to run from him.

That night, I searched my mother’s old desk for anything that might help me understand the

photograph.

There were envelopes from the clinic, recipe cards, and bundles of letters tied with faded ribbon.

I did not find the original photograph’s negative or a matching note.

But at the bottom of the drawer, behind a packet of sewing patterns, lay a small address book with my mother’s handwriting on the cover.

I opened it carefully.

Most of the pages held names from the clinic, neighbors, and old friends.

Near the end, beside a number that had been crossed out, my mother had written two words:

Moretti family.

Underneath, in a different pen, was a date from the year before Alexander and I met.

I read the words again, then carried the address book to the kitchen and called Daniel.

He listened as I explained what I had found.

“Don’t contact the family based on one note,” he said. “There may be a simple explanation.”

“I know.”

“Let me see the records. I can ask whether any of this appears in the company archives.”

Before I could answer, my phone lit up with a message from Alexander.

I found something in my father’s papers that may relate to your mother.

I haven’t opened it.

I wanted to ask before I did.

I stared at the words.

The message was followed by a photograph of a sealed envelope, its paper yellowed at the edges.

My name was written across the front in my mother’s handwriting.

Alexander’s next message arrived a moment later.

My father kept it with the old clinic papers.

I don’t know why it was in his possession.

My hand tightened around the phone.

Daniel was still speaking, asking me to send him a picture of the address book page, but his voice

seemed to recede.

I looked at the photograph of the envelope again.

My mother’s handwriting was unmistakable.

And the envelope had been addressed to me.

Part 4 – The Letter That Was Kept
I stared at the photograph of the envelope until the words on its front blurred.

My mother’s handwriting was unmistakable, though the letters had grown faint with time.

“Don’t open it,” I said.

Alexander’s reply came almost at once.