Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPHLena handed Noah back immediately.
Her hands were trembling.
“Who put that picture there?”
Ethan barely heard her.
He was staring at the photograph.
Elena Morales.
The name punched open a memory he had tried to forget.
Three weeks after Claire’s funeral, Ethan had found a locked cedar box behind winter coats in their bedroom closet.
Inside were adoption records.
A hospital bracelet.
A newspaper clipping.
And a handwritten note Claire had never shown him.
My birth mother’s name may have been Elena Morales.
At the time, Ethan had been too destroyed to investigate.
Now an eleven-month-old baby had practically thrown himself at a waitress whose mother had the same name.
Ethan stepped toward the bar.
Lena moved faster.
She grabbed the frame.
“Careful.”
“I know.”
She lifted it from the hook.
Dust marked the wall behind it.
The photograph showed Elena standing beside a heavyset man with a mustache.
In her arms were two newborn girls wrapped in matching blankets.
One white.
One pale yellow.
Lena turned the photograph over.
There was writing on the back.
Elena with Lena and Lucia. June 1997.
Lena stopped breathing.
Ethan read it twice.
“Lucia?”
“My name is Lena Morales.”
“I figured that out.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“My mother told me I was an only child.”
Ethan’s phone rang.
He ignored it.
Lena stared at the date again.
“My birthday is June 14, 1997.”
Ethan felt the room narrow.
Claire’s birthday was June 14, 1997.
“No.”
Lena looked at him.
“What?”
He pulled out his phone.
Claire’s photograph filled the lock screen.
She was sitting on the floor with Noah on Christmas morning.
Long brown hair.
Green eyes.
Wide smile.
Ethan turned the screen toward Lena.
The color left her face.
“No.”
Her fingers rose to her mouth.
“No, no, no.”
Claire and Lena were not identical.
Not exactly.
Claire’s hair had been lighter.
Her jaw slightly narrower.
But the eyes were nearly the same.
So was the smile.
Lena stumbled backward.
“Who is she?”
“My wife.”
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because she was adopted.”
Lena stared.
“And?”
“And her birthday was June fourteenth, 1997.”
The photograph slipped from Lena’s fingers.
Ethan caught it before it hit the floor.
“Claire died six weeks ago.”
Lena pressed both palms against the bar.
“I’m sorry.”
“She was looking for her birth mother.”
“This is crazy.”
“I know.”
“My mother died twelve years ago.”
Ethan looked at the framed photograph again.
“Did she ever mention another daughter?”
“No.”
“Adoption?”
“No.”
“A hospital?”
“No!”
Several customers looked over.
Lena lowered her voice.
“She told me my father left before I was born. She said it was always just the two of us.”
Ethan glanced toward Noah.
His son was staring at Lena again.
Quietly.
Almost patiently.
Then Noah reached for the silver chain around Ethan’s neck.
Ethan frowned.
It wasn’t his.
Noah must have pulled it from Lena when she held him.
A small pendant dangled from it.
Half a silver heart.
Lena touched her throat.
“My necklace.”
Ethan stared.
He had seen the other half.
Claire kept it inside the cedar box.
He looked at Lena.
“Stay here.”
“What?”
Ethan pulled out his wallet.
Dropped three hundred dollars beside his untouched dinner.
“Where are you going?”
“To my apartment.”
Lena stepped in front of him.
“You can’t show me something like this and disappear.”
“I’m bringing something back.”
“What?”
Ethan’s voice dropped.
“The other half of your necklace.”
Lena went still.
Before either of them could speak, an older man behind the bar dropped a glass.
It shattered at his feet.
Lena turned.
“Marco?”
The bartender was staring at the photograph.
His face had gone gray.
Ethan approached him.
“You know something.”
Marco shook his head.
“Sir, I think you should leave.”
“Why?”
“Because Elena made me promise.”
“Promise what?”
Marco looked at Lena.
His eyes filled with tears.
“That if the other girl ever came back…”
May you like
He swallowed.
“…I was never to tell Lena she had a sister.”
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