Nathaniel stood.
He looked sick.
“Did you forge documents?”
Marianne hesitated.
“Caroline handled most of it.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Marianne said nothing.
Nathaniel stepped backwards.
He looked toward the stairs.
Then toward his wife.
“What else have you lied about?”
She began crying.
He shook his head.
“No. Stop.”
His voice was low.
“Every year, on the anniversary of your daughter’s death, you disappeared into the bedroom. I bought flowers. I held you while you cried.”
Marianne covered her mouth.
Nathaniel looked at Audrey.
“I’m sorry.”
She stared at him.
He swallowed.
“I don’t know what to say.”
Audrey nodded.
“Neither do I.”
The front door opened.
A little girl called, “Mommy!”
Grace came running into the kitchen.
She wore a pink jacket and carried a school craft made from construction paper.
She stopped when she saw the adults.
Her eyes moved from Nathaniel to Marianne.
Then to Audrey.
“Who’s that?”
Nobody answered.
Grace looked at her mother.
“Mommy?”
Marianne wiped her face quickly.
“Sweetheart, go find your brother.”
Grace frowned.
“Why are you crying?”
Marianne knelt.
“Everything’s okay.”
Audrey looked away.
She couldn’t bear hearing those words again.
Grace glanced at her.
“Are you my mommy’s friend?”
Audrey stared at the little girl.
The same dark hair.
The same eyes.
The same small crease between her eyebrows.
Audrey swallowed.
“No.”
Grace looked confused.
“Then who are you?”
Marianne began to speak.
Audrey stopped her with a glance.
For a moment, she considered telling the child the truth.
All of it.
That her mother had lied.
That another daughter had spent eleven years visiting a grave.
That the family in these photographs had been built on a secret.
Then Grace shifted her weight and looked toward Nathaniel, waiting for an adult to explain something she didn’t understand.
She was five.
Audrey remembered being nine.
She remembered adults speaking above her head.
She remembered being told her mother was never coming back.
She looked at Grace.
“I’m Audrey.”
The little girl smiled uncertainly.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Grace looked at Marianne.
“Can I show you my picture?”
Marianne nodded through tears.
“Of course, baby.”
Grace held up the construction-paper craft.
It showed four stick figures standing beneath a large yellow sun.
MY FAMILY, written across the top.
Audrey looked at it.
Four figures.
Not five.
Not six.
Four.
She stepped backwards.
Nathaniel noticed.
“Audrey?”
She shook her head.
“I need to go.”
Marianne stood.
“Please don’t.”
Audrey looked at her mother.
The woman who had once kissed her forehead before school.
The woman who had watched her grow up only through secondhand reports, if at all.
The woman now standing beside another daughter.
“You got to start over,” Audrey said quietly.
Marianne’s face crumpled.
Audrey looked at Grace.
Then back at her mother.
“I didn’t.”
She walked out.
Graham was waiting in the living room when Audrey returned home.
He stood as soon as she entered.
“Did you find her?”
Audrey nodded.
He looked at her face.
Then he sat down.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Finally, he asked, “Is she happy?”
Audrey looked at him.
The question nearly broke her.
She sat beside him.
“She has a husband.”
Graham nodded.
“Children.”
His eyes closed.
“Two.”
He opened them.
“A boy and a girl.”
Graham stared at the floor.
Audrey watched him.
He had spent eleven years believing the love of his life was dead.
Now he knew she had simply built another life without him.
“Did she ask about me?” he asked.
Audrey swallowed.
“No.”
He nodded.
For a moment, she thought he might cry.
Instead, he reached for the television remote and turned it over in his hands.
A nervous habit.
Audrey knew it well.
She had grown up watching him do it when bills were overdue or when he received bad news.
He placed the remote down.
Then asked, “Did she explain?”
Audrey nodded.
“She said she was unhappy.”
Graham looked at her.
He gave a small, tired smile.
“I knew that.”
Audrey stared.
“What?”