Emma’s voice cut through the argument.
“You locked the blue room too.”
Natalie went silent.
I stared at her.
“Once,” she whispered. “For twenty minutes. A florist came upstairs unexpectedly. I panicked.”
The anger that moved through me was so clean it almost felt cold.
“You panicked, so you locked two children in a bedroom.”
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
Caroline stepped forward. “Ethan, they were hidden because of me.”
I looked at her.
“That does not make it better.”
“No.” She wiped her face. “It doesn’t.”
I took out my phone.
Natalie’s shoulders tensed.
“I’m calling Rebecca.”
“She may not answer.”
“Then I leave a message. Then I call Rachel. Then I make sure these kids understand they can walk through any door in this house they want.”
Emma looked at me.
“Even outside?”
“Yes.”
“Right now?”
“If you want.”
She looked toward the front door.
Then, after a moment, she shook her head. “I want to call Mom.”
Rebecca answered on the second attempt.
I put the call on speaker only after asking Emma if she wanted that.
Her mother’s voice came through strained and exhausted.
“Emma?”
Emma burst into tears.
The next ten minutes were brutal in their simplicity. Rebecca had known the children were staying with Rachel. She had not known Rachel’s building was evacuated. She had never authorized Natalie to hide them from me, lock a door, or keep their location secret. She told Emma and Noah she loved them. She told them they had done nothing wrong. She asked me to keep them with me until she could arrange for Rachel to collect them in the morning.
Then she asked to speak with Natalie privately.
Natalie took the phone into the kitchen.
I did not follow.
I sat on the bottom stair with Emma and Noah while Caroline remained across the hall as if an invisible line prevented her from coming closer.
Emma finally looked at her.
“Are you our birth mom?”
Caroline’s breath caught.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t Mom tell us you were here?”
“Because she didn’t know I was here.”
“Why are you here?”
Caroline looked at me.
“To find my brother.”
I wanted to hate the answer.
Instead, I felt sixteen again.
Our mother sitting at the kitchen table. My father standing behind her. Both of them speaking too carefully.
There was an accident.
Caroline was gone.
No body I was allowed to see. No funeral casket opened. A memorial service held within a week. My questions treated like cruelty because our parents were grieving.
I had believed them because children believe the adults who build the walls around reality.
“What happened seventeen years ago?” I asked.
Caroline did not answer in front of the children.
That was the first good decision anyone made that night.
Rachel arrived an hour later, apologizing before she had both feet inside the house. She had been sleeping on a coworker’s couch after the evacuation and believed Natalie would simply let the children use a guest room for the night. Natalie had not told her I was not supposed to see them.
Emma and Noah left with Rachel after another call with Rebecca.
Before Emma went, she stopped beside Caroline.
“Are you going to disappear?”
Caroline’s face broke.
“No.”
