Chapter 4: Eight Weeks of Silence
Reid's parents arrived at the hospital at seven in the morning.
I heard them before I saw them.
His mother's voice carried down the hallway — sharp and controlled, the way it always was when she was frightened and refusing to show it.
His father said nothing.
He rarely did.
Reid stepped outside to meet them.
I could see them through the narrow window in the door.
His mother, Diane, looked at Reid's face and then immediately past him — looking for June, I realized.
Looking to see if the child was real.
His father, Gerald, stood slightly apart with his hands in his coat pockets.
My mother was still in the room with me.
She watched the window too.
"How much do they know?" she asked.
"I don't know what Reid told them."
"Do you want me to stay?"
"Yes."
The door opened.
Diane came in first.
She was a tall woman, well-dressed even at seven in the morning, and she stopped when she saw June asleep in the chair with Reid's jacket pulled over her like a blanket.
Something moved across Diane's face.
It was gone before I could name it.
"Maren." She came to the bed.
She looked at Theo.
"He's beautiful."
"Thank you."
She sat down in the chair nearest me — not the chair by the window, not June's chair, but the one she had always claimed during hospital visits, as though she had reserved it in advance.
Gerald stood near the door.
"Reid told us about Miles," she said.
"What did he tell you?"
"That he's missing.
That he left the child." Her voice was even.
"That he borrowed money from dangerous people."
"That's what I know too."
Diane's eyes moved to June.
"How long has she been with Reid?"
"Since last night.
He found her at Miles's apartment."
"And before that?"
"She was with her mother.
Her mother d*ed three weeks ago in an accident."
Diane absorbed this.
Her hands were folded in her lap.
She was doing what she always did — processing information before allowing herself to feel it.
Gerald finally spoke from the doorway.
"Miles never said a word to us."
"No," Reid said from behind him.
"He didn't."
Gerald turned.
Father and son looked at each other.
There was a long history in that look — years of Miles being the younger one, the unpredictable one, the one who disappeared for months and came back with explanations that never quite added up.
"Did you know?" Gerald asked Reid.
"Before eight weeks ago."
"No."
"You're certain."
"I'm certain."
Diane said, quietly: "She looks like him."
Everyone looked at June.
She did.
The same dark brows.
The same way her mouth rested slightly open in sleep.
I had only known Miles for six years — the same six years I had known Reid — but I could see it clearly now that I was looking for it.
"What happens to her?" my mother asked.
She was looking at Diane when she said it.
Diane looked back at her.
The two women had never particularly liked each other.
My mother was direct.
Diane preferred architecture — the careful arrangement of things so that difficult questions never needed to be asked directly.
"That depends on Miles," Diane said.
"Miles is missing," my mother said.
"He may come back."
"He may not."
Diane's chin lifted slightly.
"Then we will address that if and when—"
"She's four years old," my mother said.
"She woke up in a hospital hallway this morning asking a stranger if she was the mama.
That's not an 'if and when' situation, Diane."
The room went quiet.
Reid looked at the floor.
Gerald looked at the window.
June slept through all of it.
I shifted Theo in my arms.
He made a small sound, then settled.
"I want to find Miles," I said.
Everyone looked at me.
"Whatever he's gotten himself into, he's still Reid's brother.
He's still June's father.
I want to know he's alive." I paused.
"But while we're looking — June stays with us."
Diane's expression shifted.
Not objection exactly.
Something more careful than that.
"Maren," she said.
"You just gave birth twelve hours ago."
"I know when I gave birth."
"You're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking more clearly than anyone else in this room."
Reid looked up.
Something in his face changed — a tightening, a recognition.
"She stays with us," he said.
Diane looked at her son.
"Reid—"
"She stays with us," he said again.
"That's not a discussion."
Diane stood.
She smoothed her coat.
She looked at June one more time — that same unreadable expression — and then she looked at me.
"I'll make some calls," she said.
"I have a contact who works with missing persons cases.
Privately."
It was the closest thing to an olive branch she had ever extended to me.
"Thank you," I said.
She nodded once.
Turned to Gerald.
"Come."
Gerald paused at the door.
He looked at Reid.
Then at me.
Then at June.
"She does look like him," he said quietly.
Then they were gone.
My mother let out a long breath.
"Well."
"Don't," I said.
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were."
She almost smiled.
"I was going to say that for Diane, that was practically a declaration of love."
Reid sat down.
He looked hollowed out.
He had been awake for over twenty-four hours, and it showed in every line of his face.
"Reid," I said.
He looked at me.
"When Miles called you eight weeks ago — what exactly did he say?"
Reid was quiet for a moment.
Then: "He said he had made a mistake.
That he needed time to fix it.
He said there was a little girl involved and he needed to know that if things went wrong, I would be the one to take her."
"And you agreed."
"I said I would think about it."
"But you didn't tell me."
His jaw tightened.
"No."
"Why?"
He looked at Theo.
At June.
At the space between them.
"Because I thought he would fix it," Reid said.
"And I didn't want to scare you while you were pregnant.
And because—" He stopped.
"Because what?"
His voice dropped.
"Because Miles has cried wolf before.
I thought this was another version of that."
I held that answer for a moment.
Turned it over.
"And the bl00d on your cuff last night?"
Reid looked at his sleeve.
He had forgotten about it, or had hoped I had.
"There was a broken window at his apartment," he said.
"I cut my hand getting June out."
"Getting her out of where?"
"She was locked in the second room.
Miles must have put her there before he left.
To keep her safe until someone came." He paused.
"She was in there for almost six hours, Maren.
She had crackers and a juice box and one of those small battery lanterns.
He planned it."
The image of that — a four-year-old sitting alone in a locked room with crackers and a lantern, waiting — settled somewhere in my chest and stayed there.
June stirred in the chair.
Her eyes opened halfway.
She looked at Reid.
Then at me.
"Is my daddy coming back?" she asked.
Nobody answered fast enough.
Her eyes filled.
"He said he would come back," she whispered.
"He promised."
Reid moved to the chair beside her.
He sat on the arm of it and put his hand on her back.
"We're going to find him," he said.
"Okay?
We're going to look."
June pressed her face against his arm.
Reid looked at me over the top of her head.
And I understood, in that moment, that whatever had broken between us in the night was not the only thing that needed tending to.
There was a missing man.
A four-year-old who loved him.
May you like
A newborn who would never know this night had happened.
And somewhere in the city, someone was waiting to be paid.
