Part 3 — The Childhood Caleb Never Forgot
Grandpa began telling me the story my mother had buried.
After Caleb’s mother died, William became increasingly interested in my mom, Sarah.
She wasn’t interested in him.
When she rejected his advances, William retaliated.
He fired her.
Then he used his influence to make it difficult for her to find another position with wealthy families in the area.
“I confronted him once,” Grandpa admitted. “We argued in that house. Caleb was standing on the staircase watching us.”
Something inside my memory stirred.
A man’s angry voice.
My mother’s hand wrapped tightly around mine.
A doorway.
Someone shouting.
“I remember yelling,” I whispered.
Grandpa looked at me sadly.
“I always wondered if you did.”
Tears burned behind my eyes.
“Why didn’t Mom ever tell me?”
“She wanted that chapter closed.”
Grandpa paused.
“And after she died, I wanted the same thing.”
I looked toward Nora.
“But Caleb was a child.”
“I know.”
“You hated him because of what his father did?”
“I didn’t know him well enough to hate him,” Grandpa said. “I simply didn’t want anything connected to William coming back into your life.”
His expression hardened.
“And then Caleb disappeared when you told him you were pregnant. I thought that proved I had been right.”
That hurt because part of me agreed.
But another question kept digging at me.
“If Caleb only wanted to hurt me, why spend nearly two years with me first?”
Grandpa said nothing.
That silence mattered.
Because suddenly I understood something.
Grandpa knew what William had done.
But Grandpa didn’t actually know what Caleb had done.
Neither did I.
Not completely.
I took Nora back into my arms.
“I have to find out for myself.”
“Emily…”
“I love you, Grandpa. But this is my life.”
That night, after Nora finally fell asleep, I went to the closet and pulled out my mother’s cedar box.
It contained the things I had avoided touching since childhood.
Photographs.
Letters.
Scarves that still somehow seemed to carry a trace of her perfume.
I wasn’t even sure what I was searching for.
Maybe proof that Grandpa was wrong.
Maybe proof that Caleb had always been exactly who I’d believed he was.
Instead, I found evidence of something else.
A photograph lay beneath several folded pieces of fabric.
I was four years old, smiling proudly on a red bicycle.
Beside me stood a dark-haired boy.
One blue eye.
One dark eye.
Caleb.
My hands began shaking.
