Chapter 2: What She Kept Under the Mattress
She said it quietly, the way you say something you have carried alone for a very long time.
"Ewan was my brother too."
The snow was still falling outside the hospital window.
I didn't move.
"Same father," she said.
"Different mother.
He never knew.
Your family made sure of that."
I thought about the fire at Pier 44.
I thought about who had called it in.
I thought about the name on the insurance paperwork I had signed six months after — paperwork Celeste had placed in front of me during a dinner, between the second course and the third, with a pen already uncapped.
"She came to the house four years ago," Delia said.
"Before you hired me.
She offered your mother money to stay quiet.
Your mother couldn't speak, but she could still write."
Delia reached under the edge of the hospital mattress with her uninjured hand.
She pulled out a folded piece of paper — small, creased deep, the kind that has been read many times.
It was in my mother's handwriting.
Three lines.
A name.
A date.
And one sentence I will not repeat here.
My phone lit up on the chair beside me.
A message from Celeste.
*Come home.
We need to talk before you do something you'll regret.*
I looked at Delia.
She was already watching me.
"She doesn't know I kept that," she said softly.
"She thinks she took everything."
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What Delia kept hidden — and what Celeste did to cover it up — is far worse than anyone expected.
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