When I got inside, I sat on the floor of my living room and called Noah. He picked up on the second ring, half laughing about something on his television.
“Eric? You okay? Did Clara like the flowers?”
“Noah.”
“What’s wrong? You sound weird.”
“I need you at Grandma Ruth’s house first thing tomorrow morning. Don’t tell her anything.”
“Eric, what happened?”
I closed my eyes and felt 20 years of belief peel away in clean strips.
Noah went silent for so long I thought the call had dropped. Then he let out one stunned breath and said, “I’ll be there.”
This morning, Noah met me outside Grandma’s house. He looked like he hadn’t slept either. Grandma Ruth was sitting on the steps in her gray coat, rosary in her hands, and when she saw us, her expression crumpled.
“Eric? Noah?” she whispered.
“Grandma, we need you to tell us the truth,” I said. “About our mother.”
“Yes. Our mom, Elena.”
Grandma’s hands trembled around the beads.
“You found out?”
“The truth can’t stay hidden forever,” I replied.
After a moment’s hesitation, Grandma Ruth invited us inside and finally spoke.
“Elena was sick. Cancer. She begged Clara to take you boys for a few months while she started treatment. Then, while driving back from one of her appointments, her car went off the bridge during a storm. They never found her body in the river.”
“So Clara lied,” Noah whispered.
“Clara told everyone Elena ran away,” Grandma Ruth replied. “Said she’d faked her accident to start over. Clara took the guardianship money. I should’ve spoken. God forgive me, I should’ve spoken.”
I held her hand.
“Come with us. Please. Just sit in the car while we talk to her.”
Grandma nodded slowly, as if she had been waiting 20 years for someone to ask.
When we arrived, Clara wasn’t home, so Grandma Ruth called her from the car. Clara said she was at the store and told her to use the spare key under the flowerpot on the windowsill.
We let ourselves in, and once the door clicked shut behind us, I headed straight for Josh’s old study. Clara had always been strict about keeping us out of that room, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that if Josh had left anything behind, it would be there. Noah followed without a word.
The room still smelled faintly of Josh’s pipe tobacco. I went straight to the bottom drawer of his desk, the one Clara never touched because she said it was “his junk.”
