Chapter 4: The Name I Never Said Out Loud
"Daniel Marsh."
I had not said that name in sixteen years.
It sat in the room like something physical.
Iris repeated it softly, testing it.
"Daniel Marsh."
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Ryan's father knows him."
"Apparently."
She looked at Ryan again.
"What did your dad tell you?"
Ryan came fully into the room now and sat down in the armchair across from us.
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and for a moment he looked much older than eighteen.
"He didn't tell me much," Ryan said.
"Not tonight.
He just — when we walked in for dinner, he saw your mom's photo.
The one you have on your phone lock screen.
The one of you two at Christmas."
Iris nodded slowly.
"He went white," Ryan said.
"Like actually white.
He excused himself and I followed him to the hallway and he said, 'That woman.
I know that woman.
Her name is Carol Calloway and she has a daughter and that daughter needs to know the truth about her father.'"
"That's all he said?" I asked.
Ryan looked at me.
"He also said your name wasn't always Calloway."
The air left my lungs.
Iris turned to me.
Slowly.
"Mom."
"My maiden name," I said.
"Before I was married.
Before any of this."
"What was it?"
I had changed it legally.
I had changed Iris's too, before she was old enough to remember having a different one.
I had done everything right.
I had been so careful.
"Harmon," I said.
"Carol Harmon."
Iris stared at me.
"You changed our names."
"Yes."
"When I was a baby."
"You were fourteen months old."
She stood up.
Not in anger — at least not yet.
She stood up the way people do when they need to feel the floor under their feet.
"So my name isn't even really Iris Calloway."
"It is now.
Legally.
It has been for sixteen years."
"But it wasn't always."
"No."
She walked to the window.
Stood with her back to me, looking out at the dark street.
Ryan didn't speak.
He was watching her the way you watch someone standing too close to an edge.
"Where is he?" she asked.
Her reflection in the glass was very still.
"Daniel Marsh.
Where is he now?"
"I don't know," I said.
And that was the truth.
I had spent years making sure I didn't know.
"But Ryan's father does."
I looked at Ryan.
He hesitated.
"My dad said he'd been in contact with him," Ryan said carefully.
"On and off.
He said — and I'm just telling you what he told me — he said Daniel never stopped trying to find you."
The words landed in the room like stones dropped into still water.
Iris turned around.
Her eyes were dry but her face had the particular blankness of someone processing something too large to feel all at once.
"He was looking for us," she said.
"That's what my dad said."
She looked at me.
"And you didn't know."
"No."
"Or you didn't want to know."
I didn't answer.
Because she was right, and we both knew it, and saying so out loud wouldn't help either of us.
She crossed the room and picked up her glass of water.
Took one sip.
Set it back down.
"I want to meet him," she said.
"Iris —"
"I'm not asking your permission, Mom." Her voice was quiet and very clear.
"I'm telling you what I've decided."
Ryan's phone buzzed in his pocket.
He glanced at it and his face changed.
"What?" Iris asked.
He turned the screen toward her.
She read it.
Her hand went to her mouth.
I leaned forward.
"What is it?
What does it say?"
Ryan looked at me.
"It's from my dad."
He read it aloud.
"Tell her Daniel Marsh is in this city.
May you like
He has been for three months.
He came looking."
