Chapter 2 - The Photograph Behind the Clock
I drove home instead of going back inside my parents' house.
Maisie fell asleep with her coat still buttoned and her forehead resting against the car seat.
My first responsibility was not solving a conspiracy.
It was making certain no one ever again used a mystery about her birth to threaten her place in my family.
I tucked her into bed and sat in the hall until the sound of her breathing steadied.
At eleven, my sister Brooke called.
Her voice was irritated rather than concerned.
'Mom says you're making Christmas about yourself.'
I told her exactly what our parents had said to Maisie.
Brooke went silent.
Then she muttered that the girls had been told Maisie was helping with a special surprise.
'She was washing plates,' I said.
My sister began to cry but would not tell me why.
The next morning I returned to the house with my friend Owen, a licensed contractor who had repaired the grandfather clock twice.
I did not ask to be admitted.
I told my mother I was there for Maisie's photograph and that I had already contacted a lawyer.
She opened the door immediately.
The clock stood in the hall, dark walnut polished until it reflected the tree lights.
Behind the hinged access panel lay a thin blue envelope.
Inside was a photograph of Alice standing in a clinic parking lot, visibly pregnant, her hand resting against the curve of her stomach.
She was smiling toward the camera.
On the back someone had written, 'For Grant, when it is safe.'
I recognized the handwriting again.
Mother sank onto the staircase.
'I thought destroying it was kinder,' she said.
I turned the image over.
The photograph was stamped July 2020, months after the accident my parents had described at Alice's funeral.
'You held a funeral for someone who was alive,' I said.
She answered that there had been a memorial, not a funeral.
I remembered a closed casket and a dark church, my father's hand heavy on my shoulder.
I remembered how grief had blurred every question into something shameful.
My mother claimed Alice had disappeared after making terrible decisions.
I asked why a woman who had vanished would leave a picture for me.
She glanced at Owen, then at the clock.
'Your grandfather started this,' she said.
She would say nothing else while another person listened.
I took the envelope and left.
Back at home, I examined the photo under better light.
A storefront reflection showed the clinic's name.
I called the number, expecting it to have changed.
It had not.
The receptionist said their records department would need time to verify a request.
Then she asked for Alice's date of birth.
I gave it.
The woman paused.
May you like
'I'm sorry, sir, but the person you're asking about collected copies of her records three weeks ago.'
