Chapter 3 - THE PHOTOGRAPH MY GRANDMOTHER HID
“The baby?” I repeated.
Margaret immediately reached for the photograph.
But Nicholas caught her hand.
“Mom, what baby?”
She looked at her two sons.
For the first time since I'd met her, Margaret Vescari appeared genuinely old.
Not weak.
Not confused.
Just exhausted by something she had carried for eighteen years.
“Your father had secrets,” she said.
Daniel gave a humorless laugh.
“That much we know.”
Nicholas placed the photograph beneath his desk lamp.
“Start at the beginning.”
Margaret looked toward me.
“Emily, your grandmother's name was Eleanor Carter?”
“Yes.”
“She was a good woman.”
My throat tightened.
Grandma Eleanor had died when I was seventeen.
She'd raised me during the years my mother worked double shifts.
She smelled of lavender soap and always wore a little silver watch.
Before she died, she gave me that watch.
I'd worn it almost every day since.
“What happened at Briarwood?” I asked.
Margaret folded her hands.
“Your grandmother was the night nurse when my husband tried to have me declared mentally incompetent.”
“Why?” Nicholas demanded.
Margaret looked at Daniel.
“Because I discovered what he had done to someone who trusted him.”
Before she could continue, Marco entered.
“Boss, Vanessa's asking for you.”
“Tell her I'm busy.”
“She has the photographer and several guests waiting. She's threatening to cancel the engagement announcement.”
Nicholas's expression hardened.
“Then let her.”
Daniel stepped toward the door.
“I'll handle her.”
“Stay here,” Nicholas ordered.
Daniel stopped.
Nicholas examined his younger brother.
“You somehow knew about Vanessa's plan before tonight. You hired the same contractor. And you have an eighteen-year-old photograph I've never seen.”
Daniel looked away.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Vanessa isn't the only person asking questions about Mom's medical history.”
He withdrew a folded letter from his pocket.
The letterhead read BRIARWOOD MEDICAL ARCHIVES.
Daniel had requested Margaret's original records three weeks earlier.
The response was brief.
Records restricted by order of the custodial trustee.
Nicholas frowned.
“Who is the trustee?”
Daniel hesitated.
“That's what I was trying to find out.”
Margaret suddenly began coughing.
I reached for her water.
As I leaned toward her, she whispered something so quietly that only I heard.
“Don't let them see your watch.”
I froze.
My grandmother's silver watch rested beneath my uniform sleeve.
Margaret's eyes were fixed on it.
I pulled my sleeve down.
But Nicholas noticed.
“Emily?”
“Nothing, sir.”
He studied me for a moment.
Then turned back to Daniel.
“We're not continuing this conversation while Vanessa has seventy-six people downstairs.”
Daniel nodded.
“Agreed.”
But Nicholas wasn't finished.
“Marco, nobody leaves until we've taken statements from the people involved. Keep the guests comfortable, and call the authorities about the chair.”
Daniel looked startled.
“You're involving the police?”
“Someone tried to injure our mother.”
Nicholas stared at him.
“I don't care what family name is involved.”
For the first time, I saw something like respect cross Daniel's face.
Then he said, “There's another problem.”
He opened a photograph on his phone.
It showed Vanessa entering Briarwood's administrative building two weeks earlier.
Beside her walked a silver-haired physician.
Margaret's face drained of color.
“Dr. Whitcomb.”
The same doctor who had signed both evaluation requests.
Nicholas studied the image.
“Why would Vanessa meet him?”
Daniel answered carefully.
“Because she's trying to gain control of Mom's assets.”
Margaret shook her head.
“Not just mine.”
Everyone looked at her.
She opened her evening purse and removed a small brass key attached to a worn blue ribbon.
“Eleanor kept something for me,” she whispered.
I recognized that ribbon.
Grandma Eleanor used to tie identical ribbons around the Christmas presents she couldn't afford to wrap properly.
Margaret pressed the key into my palm.
“Your grandmother promised she would never let him find it.”
“Who?”
Margaret looked at the photograph of her late husband.
“Your father,” she told Nicholas.
Then she turned toward me.
“Emily, after Eleanor died, did your mother keep her old cedar chest?”
I nodded slowly.
It was in my mother's apartment, along with the possessions we'd packed before her move into nursing care.
Margaret gripped my wrist.
“Then the truth may still be there.”
Nicholas stepped closer.
“What truth?”
Margaret looked at Daniel.
Then at Nicholas.
And finally at me.
“The baby in that photograph wasn't the only child your father tried to erase.”
She swallowed.
“There was another child.”
Daniel lowered his head.
Nicholas stared at his mother.
“Whose child?”
May you like
Margaret's eyes filled.
“Your father's.”
