Chapter 10 — The Birthday Books
“What?” Stellan asked.
Rowena’s voice was quiet.
“The books.”
Stellan frowned.
“What books?”
“Every birthday.”
He remembered.
From the time he was small, a beautifully wrapped book appeared every birthday morning.
No card.
No name.
Rowena always told him:
“It’s from the family.”
As a child, he assumed she meant his parents.
Later, he stopped thinking about it.
“Those were Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
Stellan closed his eyes.
He remembered dozens.
Adventure books.
History.
Poetry.
A photography book when he was thirteen.
A first-edition novel when he graduated school.
“Why didn’t you put her name on them?”
“Because I was afraid you’d ask why she always remembered exactly what you liked.”
Stellan laughed without humor.
“She was my mother.”
“Of course she knew.”
Rowena cried.
“Yes.”
Stellan’s anger deepened.
But alongside it came grief.
Evelyn had found ways to mother him around the edges of the arrangement.
Books.
Visits.
Long hugs.
Questions about school.
Quiet pride.
All while being required to answer to “Aunt Evelyn.”
“Did she ever resent me?”
Rowena sounded shocked.
“Never.”
“She resented me.”
“She resented the arrangement.”
“But never you.”
Stellan sat quietly.
Then Rowena said:
“I know you hate me.”
“Don’t decide my feelings for me.”
She went silent.
Stellan continued.
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“But you will not come near Merrick until Adeline and I decide it is safe.”
“I understand.”
“And there is no private conversation with Adeline about the document.”
“Understood.”
“No asking staff to influence us.”
“Yes.”
“No turning up.”
“I won’t.”
Stellan paused.
“And if you ever tell this story, you do not say Adeline destroyed our family by finding the document.”
Rowena began crying harder.
“I won’t.”
“The truth existed before she found it.”
“Yes.”
Stellan ended the call.
Weeks passed.
Merrick remained healthy.
But Stellan began having another kind of difficulty.
Every childhood memory had changed shape.
He found himself opening old photographs and asking:
Who knew?
Then one photograph answered that question more clearly than he expected.
It showed five-year-old Stellan between Rowena and Evelyn.
On the back, Edmund had written six words.
ALL THREE OF YOU KNOW, EXCEPT HIM.
And for the first time, Stellan realized his father had documented his own discomfort with the family secret years before anyone admitted it.