Chapter 7: Finding Marcus
We drove home in near silence.
Our daughter was with Daniel's aunt — Harold's sister, a warm, practical woman named Ruth who had texted twice during the evening asking if everything was all right and had received nothing back.
Daniel called her from the car.
He kept it brief.
He said there had been a situation at the party, that we were fine, that he would explain tomorrow.
He did not explain tomorrow.
He called her the day after.
That night, after we put our daughter to bed and stood together in the kitchen not quite knowing what to do with ourselves, Daniel opened his laptop and found Marcus in under an hour.
Marcus had a public profile on a professional networking site.
He was nineteen, studying engineering at a state university four hours away.
His profile photo showed a young man with Clara's jaw and Harold's eyes and an expression that was entirely his own — open, a little serious, looking directly at the camera like someone who had learned early not to look away from things.
Daniel stared at the screen for a long time.
"He looks like you," I said.
"He looks like Dad."
"Both."
Daniel closed the laptop.
Opened it again.
Closed it.
"What do I say to him?" he asked.
"I don't know.
But I think you start by saying hello."
"He might not want to hear from me.
He might be angry.
He's had nineteen years of being the secret.
Of being the one she kept separate."
"He might be," I said.
"Or he might have been waiting."
Daniel looked at me.
"How are you this calm right now?"
"I'm not calm.
I'm holding it together because one of us has to, and you're the one with a brother you didn't know about until two hours ago."
He almost smiled.
Not quite.
But almost.
He sent the message that night.
Short, careful, honest.
He said who he was.
He said he had only just learned about Marcus.
He said he wasn't sure what Marcus knew or wanted, but that he was reaching out because it felt wrong not to.
He said there was no pressure.
He left his number.
Marcus replied at 7:14 the next morning.
*I've known about you my whole life.
I wasn't sure you knew about me.
I'm glad you wrote.*
Daniel read it at the kitchen table while I was making coffee.
I heard him exhale — a long, slow breath, the kind that carries something out with it.
"He wrote back," he said.
I set a cup in front of him.
"What did he say?"
Daniel turned the laptop so I could read it.
I read it twice.
Then I sat down next to him.
"Okay," I said.
"Yeah," he said.
We sat there together for a while, the coffee going warm between our hands, the baby monitor quiet on the counter, the morning light coming through the kitchen window in that particular way it does in early autumn — sideways and golden and a little fragile.
Then Daniel's phone rang.
It was Harold.
"I need to tell you something," Harold said.
"About the properties.
About what's going to happen next.
There are some decisions that are going to affect you directly, and you deserve to hear them from me before the lawyers start calling."
May you like
Daniel put the phone on speaker and set it on the table between us.
"Tell me," he said.
