“That bad, huh?”
“I said all right. Don’t push it.”
Austin laughed, and the sound undid something tight in my chest.
I hadn’t heard him laugh like that since fall.
“So,” I said, “do I get a name? Or am I supposed to guess?”
His eyes flicked somewhere past my shoulder.
“She’s meeting me here.”
“Meeting you.
Here. That’s bold of her.”
“What? I promise to be normal.
Mostly normal.
I have a camera and a will to use it.”
Austin shook his head, smiling at the floor. “Just don’t ask a thousand questions, okay?”
“No promises.”
“Go wait on the porch.
I’ll grab the camera.”
I picked it up from the counter, looped the strap around my wrist, and followed him outside. I leaned against the porch rail beside my son and waited for a shy girl in a pastel dress.
Then headlights swept the driveway.
The car door opened with a soft click.
I lifted the camera, my finger ready on the button, my smile already in place for the teenage girl I expected.
But the woman who stepped out was not a teenage girl.
She was tall, mid-forties, in a dark dress that fit too well for a high school gym.
Red lipstick.
A small handbag tucked under one arm.
For one stupid second, I thought she had the wrong address.
“Mom,” Austin called over his shoulder, “this is Vanessa.”
My smile froze.
I knew that face.
Older now, softer around the edges, but unmistakable.
The half-sister of the man I had buried nine years ago.
The woman I had cut out of our lives after the will, after the lawyers, after the things she said at the funeral that I could never forgive.
The color drained from Vanessa’s face too.
“It’s lovely to finally meet you,” she finally said.
Austin held out the flowers, beaming. “You look amazing.”
The word sweetheart landed strangely in my ears. Not flirtatious.
Almost maternal.
Almost.
I forced my mouth to move. “Austin, honey, why don’t you bring Vanessa inside for a minute?
It’s chilly out here.”
“I’m fine on the porch,” Vanessa said quickly. “Actually, sweetheart, would you mind grabbing me a glass of water?
My throat is a little dry from the drive.”
“Sure.
Mom, you want anything?”
“No,” I managed. “Thank you, baby.”
Austin disappeared through the screen door. The second the door clicked shut, Vanessa took one step closer.
Her voice dropped to something quieter than a whisper.
“He asked me to give you five minutes.
After that, he wants me to tell him myself.”
The camera dangled from my wrist, knocking against the wood.
“Vanessa,” I said, and my voice came out hoarse, “what are you doing here? What is this?”
“This is the conversation you’ve been refusing to have, Margaret.
I told him to just ask you. He said you’d lock the deadbolt before I made it up the walk.
The corsage was his idea, not mine.
He swore it was the only way you wouldn’t turn me around at the curb.”
“He’s been asking questions for months.”
I stared at her. “Asking who?”
“Me.”
The pit of my stomach went cold. “That isn’t possible.
I made sure he never saw a single letter you sent.
I thought I’d kept you out long enough.”
“Well, he found me anyway.” She glanced toward the screen door. “He found something of his father’s.
He reached out in February. We’ve had coffee four times.”
“Yes.”
“You had no right.”
“I had every right.
He’s my brother’s son.”
“Half-brother,” I snapped, and instantly hated how small it made me sound.
“You decide how he hears it.
From you, or from me at a restaurant after a dance he won’t even remember.”
The water glass clinked somewhere in the kitchen. Footsteps crossed the hall.
I could hear my son coming back to the door.
My hand tightened on the rail until the wood bit into my palm. Nine years of silence, a will I had won, a man I had loved and never fully grieved, all of it walking up my front steps wearing a corsage.
And I had five minutes to undo it.
I caught Vanessa by the elbow before she could follow Austin inside.
She didn’t resist as I pulled her around the hedge, out of view of the front windows.
“Five minutes?” I hissed.
“You show up at my house, on my son’s prom night, dressed like that, and you give me five minutes?”
“I gave you nine years,” Vanessa said.
“You didn’t use a single one of them.”
“He is seventeen years old.”
“He found me in February.”
I let go of her elbow. “What did you say?”
“He messaged me through an old account.
He had questions. About his father.
Things he said you wouldn’t answer.”
“We’ve had coffee four times, Margaret.
He showed me pictures from the garage. He asked me what my brother was like when he was twenty.”
