Chapter 5 — “Keep This One”
Yvette traced the faded words with her thumb.
“This is my mother’s handwriting.”
Conrad looked toward the envelope but did not reach for it.
“I recognize it.”
Dorian looked at Yvette.
“Where did you find the photograph?”
“In Mom’s desk after she died.”
Celia had died six years earlier.
A sudden illness.
Too fast for many long conversations.
Yvette inherited several boxes of photographs and personal papers.
Most were ordinary.
School photographs.
Holiday cards.
Receipts.
Letters from Adrian.
The cream envelope was different.
It contained only the one hospital photograph.
Yvette had always assumed the unidentified man was a doctor, family friend, or distant relative.
She never asked while Celia was alive.
Now she wished she had.
“If she hated you enough to remove every other photo…”
Yvette looked toward Conrad.
“Why keep this?”
Conrad looked emotional.
“I don’t know.”
Yvette stared.
“You really don’t?”
“No.”
“I never knew the photograph survived.”
For the first time, Yvette believed him completely.
His reaction was too immediate.
Then Conrad looked more closely.
“May I see the back?”
Yvette hesitated.
Then held it where he could read without taking it.
Conrad stared at the handwriting.
“Keep this one.”
His eyes filled.
“She used to write notes like that when sorting photographs.”
Yvette frowned.
“Meaning?”
“She would make piles.”
“Keep.”
“Duplicate.”
“Send to Dad.”
“That sort of thing.”
Yvette looked again.
“So she deliberately chose not to throw it away.”
“It appears so.”
Dorian looked at Conrad.
“Did you ever try contacting Celia after Yvette became an adult?”
Conrad nodded.
“Once.”
Yvette looked up.
“When?”
“On your eighteenth birthday.”
Her expression changed.
Conrad continued carefully.
“I sent Celia one letter.”
“Not to you.”
“To her.”
“I told her that if she believed you should know I existed, she could tell you.”
“I also told her I would not contact you directly without her knowledge.”
Yvette stared.
“Did she answer?”
Conrad shook his head.
“No.”
“You never sent another?”
“No.”
Yvette did not know how to feel.
Anger remained.
But it had changed shape.
Conrad had clearly done something serious enough for Celia to cut contact.
Yet he had also apparently spent decades respecting the final boundary after learning the hard way.
Then Yvette asked the question Dorian had been wondering from the beginning.
“If you stayed away for decades, why are you here now?”
Conrad looked toward the hotel.
Then toward Amelie sleeping in the stroller.
“Because I didn’t come here looking for you.”
Yvette frowned.
“Then how did you recognize me?”
Conrad took a slow breath.
“Your mother’s face.”
“But that wasn’t the only thing.”
He looked toward the stroller.
“I heard you say your daughter’s name.”
And the name Amelie carried a family meaning Yvette had never known.