Chapter 3 - THE CHILD IN THE OLD PHOTOGRAPH
"What happened to your mother's baby?"
I heard myself ask the question twice.
The first time, Roman didn't answer.
The second time, he looked at the bus ticket as though it belonged to a life he'd spent thirty years trying to forget.
"Claire."
"Don't say my name like that."
He lifted his eyes.
"You need to sit down."
"No. I need the truth."
Roman placed the ticket on the dresser.
For a moment, he looked toward the bedroom door, perhaps checking that nobody was listening.
"My mother lost the baby."
"When?"
"After the attack."
"What attack?"
Roman's shoulders stiffened.
"The one I told you about."
"You told me someone threatened your family. You never told me what happened."
He walked toward the armchair beside the fireplace.
For the first time since I'd known him, he seemed uncertain where to begin.
"My father owned a warehouse in Paterson. Thirty years ago, men from a rival organization set fire to it. My mother was there."
"Why?"
"She'd gone looking for my father."
Roman stared at his hands.
"She was seven months pregnant."
My hand moved instinctively to my stomach.
"She survived the fire," he continued. "But she went into labor early."
"And the baby?"
He swallowed.
"My father told me she died."
I studied him.
"Your sister?"
Roman nodded.
"Her name was supposed to be Elena."
"Supposed to be?"
"My mother had embroidered it on a blanket."
His voice softened.
"White cotton. Little yellow flowers."
Something about the detail made the story more painful.
Not because it was dramatic.
Because it was ordinary.
A mother sewing flowers onto a blanket for a daughter she never got to hold.
"What happened to your mother?"
Roman looked toward the window.
"She died three weeks later."
I felt my anger shift into something heavier.
"I'm sorry."
He shook his head.
"Don't apologize for asking."
I sat beside him.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then I looked at the ticket again.
"Why would my father know about your sister?"
Roman's expression hardened.
"That's what I intend to find out."
He stood and crossed to an antique cabinet beneath the television.
From a locked drawer, he removed a small wooden box.
I'd seen that box before.
It had traveled with us on our honeymoon.
It sat beside his passport whenever we left the country.
But he'd never opened it in front of me.
Roman carried it to the bed.
Inside was a woman's gold wristwatch.
Its leather strap had faded almost white.
Beside it lay a tiny silver bracelet.
And underneath them was a photograph.
Roman handed it to me.
A dark-haired woman stood outside a brick hospital, holding a little boy's hand.
The boy looked about nine.
His eyes were Roman's eyes.
But it was the woman standing beside his mother who caught my attention.
She wore a pale coat and held a folded white blanket.
"Who's that?"
Roman leaned closer.
"A nurse."
"Do you know her name?"
"No."
I studied the photograph.
The woman's face seemed familiar.
Not because I'd met her.
Because I'd seen her in another picture.
"My mother had a photograph of this woman."
Roman's head lifted.
"What?"
"In a box of things she kept from nursing school."
"Your mother was a nurse?"
"Before I was born."
Roman stared at me.
"Where did she train?"
"St. Agnes Hospital."
The color left his face.
"Claire, that's where my mother delivered."
I looked down at the photograph again.
The woman in the pale coat was smiling faintly.
She had one hand resting against the blanket.
And on her wrist was a distinctive oval watch.
A watch almost identical to the one in Roman's box.
"Your mother gave it to her?"
Roman shook his head.
"This belonged to my mother. She wore it every day."
I turned the photograph over.
There was a date.
A week after the warehouse fire.
And four words in blue ink.
Mary, keep your promise.
Mary.
My mother's name.
I looked at Roman.
"My mother was there."
He didn't speak.
"Roman, my mother knew your family."
A terrible possibility settled between us.
My father had arranged our marriage.
He'd insisted I marry Roman to settle an enormous debt.
I'd always believed it was about money.
But what if it hadn't been?
"What did my father owe you?" I asked.
Roman frowned.
"You know what he owed."
"I know the number he told me."
"Three million."
"For what?"
Roman hesitated.
"Unpaid business obligations."
"That's not an answer."
He looked away.
I stood.
"You told me we were solving a financial problem. You said my father would be protected if I agreed."
"He would have lost his company."
"Roman, what exactly did you buy from him?"
Roman remained silent.
My chest tightened.
"You don't know, do you?"
"I know what my accountants documented."
"Have you ever actually seen the original agreement?"
He looked at me.
Then he opened another drawer and removed a leather folder.
Inside were pages bearing my father's signature.
Roman turned them quickly.
I watched his expression change.
"What?"
"The debt wasn't originally owed to me."
"To whom?"
"My father's estate."
He turned another page.
A yellowed receipt slipped free.
Across its top was a hospital name.
St. Agnes.
Roman read the receipt.
His jaw clenched.
"These aren't trucking expenses."
"What are they?"
"Medical payments. Made over eighteen years."
"To whom?"
He studied the final line.
"To a woman named Mary Hayes."
My mother's maiden name.
The room went quiet.
Roman looked at me.
"My father was paying your mother."
"For what?"
"I don't know."
He reached for his phone, but I put my hand over it.
"Please don't call anyone yet."
"Claire—"
"Every time we ask someone a question, another piece of our lives turns out to be a lie."
Roman lowered the phone.
I looked again at the photograph.
My mother standing beside his.
The tiny bracelet.
The blanket.
Then I noticed something unusual.
The nurse holding the blanket wasn't looking at Roman's mother.
She was looking at someone outside the frame.
I lifted the photograph toward the lamp.
At the far edge was a narrow reflection in the hospital's glass doors.
A man.
He wore a dark suit and stood beside a young nurse holding a small bundle.
Roman leaned forward.
"That's my father."
My breath caught.
"And the nurse?"
I knew that face.
Older now, with silver hair and kind eyes.
But unmistakable.
"That's Dr. Allison Reed."
Roman stared at me.
"Your doctor?"
I nodded.
"The woman who's been treating me for four months."
He looked down at the silver bracelet.
Then at the photograph.
And finally at me.
"Claire," he whispered, "I think my sister may have survived."
Before I could answer, I noticed something engraved inside the bracelet.
Not a name.
Two initials.
C.H.
My mother's married initials.
May you like
And beneath them, a date.
The date my parents had always celebrated as their wedding anniversary.
