Chapter 4
I did not give Victor the phone.
“Why did you tell my father his mother was dead?”
Dad stared at me.
Ortiz lifted a hand, reminding me she was listening.
Victor’s silence stretched.
“Who have you been talking to?”
“Answer the question.”
“Your grandmother was very unwell. Thomas was a child. There were decisions made to protect him.”
“You told him she was buried.”
“I won’t discuss private medical matters with you.”
“She is his mother.”
“And I am the person who has cared for her.”
“Then you’ll have no objection to us seeing her.”
His voice became cold.
“Rosehaven has rules. You cannot simply turn up and disturb a vulnerable woman.”
Ortiz took the phone with my permission.
“This is Deputy Ortiz. I’m documenting a complaint involving the property and possible false statements concerning Clara Bell. I’d like your contact details.”
Victor gave them.
Then he ended the call.
Dad sat at the dining table holding the envelope from his mother.
“I should have asked more questions,” he said.
“You were fourteen.”
“I grew up. I could have gone back.”
“They told you she was dead.”
“I let Victor talk about her like she was something shameful.”
I pulled out a chair.
“What was she like?”
He looked surprised.
I had never asked because I thought there was nothing left to tell.
“She sang while she cooked,” he said. “Badly. She planted lavender beside the porch because she liked the smell when the windows were open.”
His mouth trembled.
“She remembered everything about me. What I liked. What scared me.”
He opened the envelope.
The letter was dated two days before she disappeared.
Thomas, if someone tells you I chose to leave, do not believe them.
Dad stopped reading aloud.
I let him finish privately.
Outside, the fire crew secured the cellar. Ortiz arranged to have the ledger and notebooks copied and preserved. She told us the environmental investigators would assess the contents, while a detective reviewed the family allegations.
We had to be patient.
Dad had already waited nearly fifty years.
That evening, we called Rosehaven.
The administrator, Mrs. Lane, confirmed Clara lived there but would not discuss her care with us without verifying our identities.
Dad gave his full name and birth date.
There was a long pause.
“I’ll need to check the file,” she said.
“We can bring documents tomorrow.”
“I’ll call you in the morning.”
Dad stayed at my house that night.
He barely slept.
At six, I found him standing in the kitchen looking at the photograph of himself and Bramble.
“She would be eighty-eight,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Will she know me?”
“I don’t know.”
“What if seeing me hurts her?”
“She gave Elias a letter asking him to find you.”
He nodded slowly.
Mrs. Lane called at eight-thirty.
She had verified enough to arrange a meeting. She said Clara had been told someone named Thomas wanted to visit.
“What did she say?” Dad asked.
Mrs. Lane hesitated.
“She asked whether he still had the scar on his left thumb.”
Dad looked at his hand.
He had cut it climbing a fence at twelve.
We drove to Rosehaven immediately.
The building was neat, expensive, and quiet. Nothing about it looked like a prison.
That frightened me in a different way.
Mrs. Lane met us in a private office. She explained that Clara’s records were complicated. Victor had been listed as her principal family contact and financial representative for years.
“Her file says her son died in a road accident,” she told Dad.
He gripped the chair.
“I’m here.”
“I can see that. We’re taking it seriously.”
She led us to a small sitting room.
An elderly woman waited beside the window.
Her hair was white. Her hands rested on a walking stick.
Dad stopped in the doorway.
“Mom?”
Clara turned.
For one terrible second, nothing changed.
Then she lifted a trembling hand.
“Show me your thumb.”
He went to her and held it out.
She touched the scar.
“My Tommy.”
Dad knelt beside her chair.
I stayed near the door, unable to move.
She put both hands against his face.
“They told me you were gone.”
“They told me the same about you.”
She began to cry.
Dad held her carefully.
I thought of all the ordinary days they had lost. Birthdays. Phone calls. Arguments that could have ended with an apology.
Then Clara looked past him and saw me.
“Who is this?”
Dad turned.
“My son. Adrian.”
She reached toward me.
I crossed the room and took her hand.
“You have his eyes,” she whispered.
Before I could answer, the door opened.
Victor stood in the hallway.
May you like
He looked at my father kneeling beside Clara.
For the first time in my life, I saw him afraid.
