Chapter 5: Telling Nolan
He came home at six-fifteen, the same time he always did, dropping his keys in the bowl by the door and calling out to Leo before he even had his jacket off.
I heard Leo shriek with delight from the living room.
I heard Nolan laugh.
I had cleaned up the kitchen.
The pot was repacked, the plant moved to the back porch.
The ring and the letter were in a small envelope on the kitchen table, next to two cups of tea I had made and let go cold.
When Nolan walked in and saw my face, he stopped.
"What happened?"
"Sit down," I said.
He didn't sit.
He looked at the envelope.
"Claire.
What is that?"
"Please sit down, Nolan."
He pulled out the chair slowly and sat.
I sat across from him.
I put my hand flat on the envelope but didn't open it yet.
"Your mother called me today," I said.
"Or — I called her.
I found something when I was repotting the Peace Lily."
He looked at the envelope again.
"She hid something in the plant?"
"Yes."
"Why would she —"
"Because she was scared to tell you directly.
And because she needed someone to have it in case something happened to her." I slid the envelope across the table.
"Open it."
He opened it slowly.
He took out the ring first, turned it over, read the inscription.
His expression didn't change, but something shifted behind his eyes.
Then he unfolded the letter.
I watched him read.
He didn't move.
He didn't make a sound.
He read the front page and then turned it over and read the second page, and when he set it down his hands stayed flat on the table on either side of it.
"I have a brother," he said.
"Half-brother.
Yes."
"My father was married before my mother."
"Yes."
He looked up at me.
"Did she know?
When she married him?"
"I don't know.
I didn't ask her that."
He nodded slowly.
He picked up the ring again and held it without looking at it.
"Eleanor."
"That was her name."
"She d*ed?"
"I think so.
Margaret didn't say how."
Nolan set the ring down on the letter.
He picked up the cold tea, realized it was cold, and set it back down.
"This Daniel — he's already contacted my mother."
"Six weeks ago."
Something crossed his face.
"Six weeks." He said it quietly, like he was measuring it.
"She's known for six weeks and she hid it in a flower pot."
"She was trying to protect you."
"From what?
From knowing I have a brother?" His voice didn't rise.
That was almost worse.
"From knowing my father lied to everyone for his entire life?"
"From making a decision too fast.
From Daniel's lawyer using your reaction against you."
He looked at me.
"You've already thought about this."
"I've had since this morning."
He was quiet for a long moment.
Leo's voice drifted in from the living room — he had found his shape-sorter and was narrating his progress to no one.
"What does he want?" Nolan asked.
"His share of your father's estate.
Possibly more, if his lawyer can get the original filing declared fraudulent."
"How much?"
I told him.
He didn't flinch, but his jaw tightened.
"And if a judge agrees the filing was fraudulent?"
"You and Diane could be required to return what you inherited."
He stood up.
He walked to the window — the same window I had stood at that morning — and looked out at the yard.
"I need to call Diane," he said.
"I know."
"And I need to call my mother."
"I know."
He turned around.
"Did she say anything else?
Anything she didn't put in the letter?"
I thought about the last thing Margaret had said before she hung up.
*He's the one who told me it existed.*
"Yes," I said.
"But I think she should be the one to tell you that part."
He nodded.
He picked up his phone from the counter.
And then it rang before he could dial.
An unknown number.
Local area code.
He looked at me.
I looked at the name on the letter, still open on the table.
May you like
*Daniel Reeve.*
Nolan answered it.
