Chapter 3
I woke before Aunt June.
For a moment, I did not know where I was. Then I saw Mom’s photograph on the dresser and the birthday card beside it.
Dad had written more than his usual message.
I love you. You never have to earn a place with me.
I read it three times.
June found me sitting on the bed.
“Breakfast?”
“Is Dad here?”
“Not yet. He sent a message. He’s coming at eight.”
“What did he say?”
“That you can stay as long as you need.”
I looked away.
“I don’t want to make him choose.”
June sat beside me.
“He’s your father. Keeping you safe isn’t a competition.”
After breakfast, Dad arrived carrying the wooden box.
I recognized the little brass handle and the flower carved into the lid. Mom used to keep it on a shelf in the living room.
It looked dusty.
Dad placed it on June’s kitchen table.
“I found it exactly where you said.”
“Was Claire angry?”
“We talked.”
He did not explain the talk. I was grateful. I could already imagine every word.
June opened the box.
Inside were photographs, birthday cards, Mom’s watch, and a small knitted hat I had worn as a baby.
I picked up the hat.
“It’s tiny.”
“You were tiny,” June said.
Dad smiled, but his eyes were wet.
At the bottom was a folded sheet in Mom’s handwriting.
Ethan’s birthdays.
It listed things she wanted me to know as I grew up. Some were funny.
At eight, teach him to make pancakes, even if the first batch looks terrible.
At ten, tell him his father was afraid of the deep end until he was twelve.
Dad laughed through a breath.
“That is confidential.”
I kept reading.
At twelve, remind him kindness does not mean accepting cruelty.
I could not move.
June put her hand over mine.
Mom had written it while she was sick. I remembered hospital visits, her soft scarves, and adults stopping conversations when I entered.
I had not known she was thinking about my twelfth birthday.
“Why didn’t I have this?” I asked.
Dad looked ashamed.
“I forgot it was here. After she died, I put too many things away because looking at them hurt. I should have checked.”
“Claire told me you wanted the box stored.”
“I didn’t tell her that.”
I closed my eyes.
I had believed that lie so completely I never asked again.
Dad showed me another envelope. It held information about a savings account Mom and Dad opened for me.
I knew there was money for college. Dad sometimes mentioned it when I worried about what electricians earned.
“Claire said this money paid for our vacation,” I told him.
Dad stared.
“When?”
“Last summer. She said I should stop complaining about sharing a room with Mason because my college money helped us go.”
June looked at Dad.
“Mark?”
“I paid for that vacation from our household account.”
“Maybe she meant something else,” I said quickly.
Dad shook his head.
“You don’t need to explain her words for her.”
He called the bank from June’s dining room. I could hear only pieces.
Account access.
Recent transfers.
Copies.
When he returned, he looked different.
Not furious. Focused.
“I need to check some records,” he said.
“Did somebody take it?”
“There are withdrawals I don’t recognize. I won’t guess before I understand them.”
I nodded, though I wished he would tell me everything immediately.
That afternoon, we went back to the house for my schoolbooks.
Claire was not there. Dad said she had taken Lily and Mason to their aunt Dana’s.
The dining room still held decorations from my party.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETHAN sagged across the doorway.
The cake board sat beside the sink.
I looked at it once, then turned away.
Dad took the banner down and folded it.
“You can stay with June while we work out living arrangements,” he said.
“Are you leaving Claire?”
“I don’t know every decision yet. I do know I won’t leave you alone with her.”
In my room, I found a folded note on the pillow.
It was from Lily.
I’m sorry I stopped talking. I wanted to tell him.
Underneath, she had drawn a blue plate with a whole cake on it.
I put the note in my pocket.
Mason’s bedroom door was open. My headphones lay on his desk.
Dad saw me looking.
“Those are yours?”
“Yes.”
He handed them to me.
I waited for someone to say I had taken them without asking.
Nobody did.
As we carried my books downstairs, Dad stopped by the hall cupboard. He opened the drawer where school letters and bills usually went.
An envelope with my name lay beneath a stack of catalogs.
It was from my school counselor.
Dad opened it slowly.
The letter asked for a meeting about changes in my behavior, missing lunches, and several days when I had fallen asleep in class.
It was dated six weeks earlier.
“I never saw this,” Dad said.
I remembered Claire telling me the school thought I was lazy.
“She said you read it,” I whispered.
May you like
Dad folded the letter carefully.
Then he called the school.
