Chapter 6 - The Photograph
I read the sentence three times.
Then I read it again.
James took the photograph from my hand.
“This could be fabricated.”
“I know.”
But my voice didn’t sound convinced.
Dad arrived at the hotel an hour later.
The moment I showed him the picture, the color drained from his face.
“Where did you get this?”
“Lauren’s car.”
He sank into a chair.
“Is Michael my father?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
Too instantly.
“Look at me.”
Dad did.
“I am your father.”
“Biologically?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Yes.”
I wanted to believe him.
I almost did.
Then I remembered twenty-nine years of family secrets.
“Why does this exist?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Your uncle struggled after Lauren’s mother left.”
Dad rubbed his face.
“He resented your mother and me.”
“Why?”
“Because our life looked easy.”
That sounded familiar.
Lauren’s resentment had apparently grown in the same soil as her father’s.
Dad continued.
“Michael made accusations.”
“What accusations?”
“He claimed your mother had promised to leave me for him.”
My stomach turned.
“Did she?”
“No.”
Again, too fast.
James leaned forward.
“Tom, where is Karen?”
“At home.”
“Does Lauren know?”
Dad looked startled.
Then terrified.
We called Mom.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Dad stood so quickly the chair nearly fell.
We drove to my parents’ house with police already on the way.
The front door was unlocked.
The dining room still looked almost exactly as it had the night before.
Plates remained on the table.
A half-empty wineglass sat beside Lauren’s abandoned chair.
Mom was nowhere downstairs.
Then we heard voices upstairs.
James raised a hand, stopping me.
Officers entered first.
Seconds later, one called down.
“She’s okay.”
I ran upstairs.
Mom was sitting on her bedroom floor.
She wasn’t injured.
She was holding an old metal box.
The contents had been spread around her.
Letters.
Photographs.
Legal documents.
Lauren had not been there.
Mom had been looking for answers herself.
“I lied,” she whispered when she saw me.
“About what?”
Tears spilled down her face.
“I didn’t burn Michael’s letter.”
She pulled a yellowed envelope from beneath a stack of photographs.
“I kept it.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because there was one sentence in it I could never forget.”
She unfolded the letter with shaking fingers.
Then she handed it to me.
Halfway down the page, Michael had written:
May you like
If Lauren ever learns what happened that Christmas, she will hate all of us.
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