“When she was ten, I think. Maybe younger,” he said. “She had a bad day. I told her if she wore it, she could pretend I was walking beside her.”
Mrs. Bell lowered her eyes.
“I gave it to her first.”
Victor opened the locket.
Inside was a faded photo of two CHILDRIN sitting on porch steps, his arm draped around her shoulders.
On the back, scratched in childish handwriting, were three words.
“My safe place.”
My throat tightened.
“That’s Mom?”
Victor nodded.
“And the boy is you?”
“My safe place.”
“Yes.”
I took a step backward.
“No. Mom only had one brother.”
“Mark was the youngest.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
“If you were her brother,” I said, my voice rising, “why did she make you live outside?”
Victor flinched.
“Mom only had one brother.”
Mrs. Bell answered before he could.
“Because Mark scared her.”
I turned toward her.
“Scared her how?”
“He told Stephanie people would call her unfit if she let Victor near you. She was poor, single, and terrified.”
Victor closed the locket.
“She let me stay close. That was all she thought she could risk. I wasn’t easy to help, Fiona. But your mother never stopped trying.”
“Scared her how?”
My thoughts returned immediately to Mom’s hospital room.
“The blue box,” I whispered.
Victor looked up.
“She told you?”
“She said not to let Mark touch it.”
Mrs. Bell pointed toward the house.
“Then stop standing here.”
I rushed inside and searched through Mom’s closet until I found the blue box beneath old blankets.
My name was written across the lid.
“She told you?”
Inside were photographs, letters, and envelopes.
The first photo showed Mom as a little girl standing beside Victor. Her knees were scraped. His lip was swollen.
Written on the back in Mom’s handwriting were the words:
“Victor walked me home again.”
I opened the letter addressed to me.
“Fiona,
If you are reading this, then I wasn’t brave enough to tell you while I was alive.”
“Victor walked me home again.”
