Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN WHO DIED
Daniel’s wife had been dead for eleven years.
Then a boy slammed into his SUV holding her photograph.
“Please! Don’t leave!”
Daniel had one foot inside the vehicle when he heard the crack in the boy’s voice.
He turned.
The kid was skinny, breathless, and wearing a jacket too light for the October cold. One hand braced against the black door. The other held a folded piece of paper.
Daniel stepped onto the sidewalk.
“Are you hurt?”
The boy shook his head.
“My mom told me to find you.”
Behind Daniel, the glass doors of Mercer Children’s Hospital slid open. People were leaving the annual donor breakfast, talking about parking and coffee.
“Who’s your mom?”
The boy thrust the photograph forward.
Daniel crouched and unfolded it.
The sidewalk seemed to tilt.
A younger version of himself stood beside a hospital bed. Caroline sat against the pillows, brown hair falling over one shoulder, their newborn pressed to her chest.
He remembered the blue chair outside the frame.
He remembered crying when the baby finally cried.
“That’s my wife.”
The boy’s face brightened.
“That’s my mom.”
Daniel looked at him.
Brown eyes. A small notch in his left eyebrow.
Daniel had the same notch.
“No,” he whispered. “She died eleven years ago.”
The boy’s hope faltered.
“Then why did she send me here this morning?”
Daniel couldn’t answer.
“What’s your name?”
“Noah.”
Caroline had picked that name before they knew they were having a boy.
Daniel’s hand began to shake.
“Where is she?”
“At our apartment. She fell in the bathroom last night.” Noah swallowed. “She said you’d be here. She saw your picture.”
“Did someone call an ambulance?”
“She made me come get you first.”
Daniel stood too quickly.
“Martin,” he called to his driver. “We’re leaving.”
Noah grabbed his sleeve.
“One thing.”
“What?”
“Mom said don’t call your brother.”
Daniel stared at him.
Across the sidewalk, his older brother Victor emerged from the hospital, smiling at a board member.
Noah saw him.
The boy’s entire body went rigid.
He stepped behind Daniel.
“That’s him.”
Victor noticed them and stopped smiling.
“Noah?” he said.
Daniel slowly turned.
May you like
For eleven years, his brother had helped him mourn a dead wife and son.
Now Victor knew the boy’s name.
