“Caleb,” he repeated.
Then, after a pause, he asked, “What’s his father’s name?”
My smile vanished.
“William.”
Grandpa closed his eyes.
“Grandpa, what’s going on?”
He pressed his lips against Nora’s forehead.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded unsteady.
“I made a promise to your mother.”
I stared at him.
“What kind of promise?”
“That I would never tell you certain things about your childhood.”
My chest tightened.
“What things?”
He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“Your mother wanted you to grow up without that family in your life. After she died, I decided to honor what she wanted.”
“What family?”
Grandpa swallowed.
“Caleb’s.”
I lowered myself onto the porch step because suddenly I didn’t trust my legs.
A horrible possibility flashed through my mind.
“Grandpa…”
My voice broke.
“Are Caleb and I related?”
His head snapped toward me.
“No. Absolutely not. Not by blood. Don’t even think that.”
The relief was immediate but brief.
“Then why are you acting like this?”
Grandpa stared down at Nora.
“Because your mother used to work for Caleb’s family.”
I frowned.
“Doing what?”
“She was Caleb’s nanny.”
The words made no sense at first.
Grandpa continued.
“When Caleb was around seven, your mother lived in their home because of her job. And since you were still a little girl…”
He looked at me carefully.
“You lived there too.”
A strange sensation ran through me.
Images I couldn’t fully understand moved somewhere at the edge of my memory.
A garden.
A large staircase.
Sunlight on a long hallway.
And suddenly—
“A red bicycle,” I whispered.
Grandpa’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
My pulse quickened.
“There was a boy.”
Grandpa nodded.
“You two were always together.”
I could barely breathe.
“That boy was Caleb?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, the entire world seemed to go silent.
For illustrative purposes only
