“What do you know about her mother?”
His wife, Victoria, shook her head.
“Ethan, don’t do this here.”
Lily stared at her.
“You know my mom?”
Victoria said nothing.
Ethan grabbed the old photograph again.
“Answer her.”
Victoria’s eyes filled with panic.
Finally she whispered:
“Her mother didn’t disappear.”
Ethan froze.
“What?”
Victoria looked at Lily, then back at her husband.
“She came to our house nine years ago.”
Ethan’s face changed.
“You told me she left the country.”
Victoria’s voice cracked.
“She came to tell you she was pregnant.”
The entire restaurant seemed to disappear around them.
Ethan looked at Lily.
Then at his wife.
“You knew?”
Victoria began crying.
“I was afraid you would leave me.”
Ethan stepped back as if she had struck him.
“So what did you do?”
Victoria covered her mouth.
For several seconds, she couldn’t speak.
Then Lily quietly pulled one more thing from her pocket.
A sealed envelope.
“My grandmother told me to give this to him only after I met the woman in the wedding photo.”
Victoria saw the handwriting and suddenly lunged toward Lily.
“DON’T OPEN THAT!”
Ethan caught her wrist.
That reaction told him everything.
He tore open the envelope.
Inside was a handwritten letter from Lily’s mother.
The first sentence read:
“Ethan, if you’re reading this, Victoria finally failed to keep our daughter hidden from you.”
But the final line was worse.
It contained the name of the person who had paid Lily’s mother to disappear.
Ethan read it twice.
Then slowly looked across the restaurant.
Because that person was sitting only a few tables away… watching them the entire time.
