Chapter 4: A Name That Shouldn't Exist
I sat down on the step beside Daniel because my legs decided the matter before I did.
"That's not possible," I said.
"I know."
"Caleb's father was your father.
Frank.
My husband of thirty-one years."
"I know, Mom."
"Frank has been gone for six years.
He can't—"
"Robert Hayle isn't claiming to have raised Caleb." Daniel's voice was careful, the way you speak to someone standing close to the edge of something.
"He's claiming to be Caleb's biological father."
The party sounds from inside the house continued.
A child shrieked with laughter.
Someone turned up music.
I looked at my hands.
The race car was still in my left palm, the paint worn smooth where I'd held it too many times over too many years.
"How long have you known about this man?" I asked.
Daniel was quiet for three full seconds.
"Eight months."
Eight months.
The same amount of time the race car had been missing from my closet.
"He contacted you."
"He contacted Vanessa first, actually." Daniel glanced at her.
"Through the business."
I looked at Vanessa.
She was leaning against the fence post now, arms still crossed, watching me with an expression I couldn't quite name.
Not guilt.
Something more defended than guilt.
"He found me online," she said.
"Said he'd been looking for Daniel's family for years.
Said he had information about Caleb that we needed to hear."
"And you didn't tell me."
"We didn't know if he was telling the truth."
"He had the race car, Vanessa."
"We didn't know that then." Her voice sharpened.
"We thought he was some grief tourist.
Someone who'd read an old obituary and constructed a story.
It happens.
People do that."
"So you met with him."
A pause.
"Daniel did."
I turned back to my son.
He was staring at the ground between his feet.
"Daniel."
"Once," he said.
"I met him once.
At a coffee shop.
I didn't tell you because I didn't want to upset you over something that might be nothing."
"And was it nothing?"
He didn't answer immediately.
That was its own answer.
"He knew things," Daniel said finally.
"Things about Mom — about you — from before I was born.
Things I'd never heard.
Things that were specific enough that I couldn't explain them away."
"What things?"
"He knew about the miscarriage before Caleb.
He knew the name you'd chosen.
He knew about the blue room — the one Dad painted before Caleb was born, the one you repainted after."
My throat tightened.
Frank had known about those things.
My sister Ruth had known.
One or two close friends, long since moved away or gone.
"He could have found that out from someone who knew us."
"He knew the name you'd painted on the inside of the closet door," Daniel said quietly.
"In the blue room.
In your handwriting.
The name you never told anyone."
I stopped breathing for a moment.
There had been a name.
Written in pencil on the inside of the closet door in the blue room, at the back where the shelf blocked it from view.
I'd written it the day I came home from the hospital with Caleb, when I was so full of something I couldn't contain it.
I'd never shown it to Frank.
I'd never told anyone.
I'd painted over it myself when I repainted the room.
"How did he know that?" I asked.
"He says he was there," Daniel said.
"He says he was in that house before I was born.
He says you knew him."
Vanessa pushed off from the fence post.
"This is exactly why I didn't want to do this today." Her voice was tight.
"We don't know what he wants.
We don't know if any of it is true.
And now we're doing this at Mason's birthday party while ten children are eating cake inside."
"He came here today," I said.
"He came to this house.
He took my cake out of the trash and he gave my grandson a race car that has been in my closet for twenty-three years." I stood up.
"Whatever he wants, he's already decided today is the day."
Daniel stood too.
"Mom—"
"I want to talk to him."
"We don't know where he went."
"Then we find out." I looked at Vanessa.
"You said he contacted you through the business.
You have a number."
Her jaw tightened.
"Vanessa.
You have a number."
The screen door opened behind us.
Mason leaned out, chocolate frosting on his chin, holding a paper plate.
"Is everything okay?
The big cake is ready.
Mrs.
Petrov says we're doing candles."
I looked at my grandson.
Ten years old today.
Chocolate frosting on his chin.
A tiny red race car in his grandmother's hand.
"We'll be right in, sweetheart," I said.
He went back inside.
I turned to Vanessa one last time.
"After the candles," I said.
"You give me that number."
She looked at Daniel.
He gave her nothing back.
She looked at me.
"Fine," she said.
May you like
"After the candles."
But her hand had moved to her phone before I even turned away.
