“Mom said someone gave this to me before she knew me.”
Ethan looked startled.
“She told you that?”
“She said it was from my first story.”
Ethan leaned back.
He had not known.
Alexandra said:
“May I tell you what’s inside?”
Nora hesitated.
Then nodded.
Alexandra did not reach for it.
“A tiny picture.”
“Of what?”
“You and me.”
Nora’s breathing changed.
“And words.”
“What words?”
Alexandra whispered them.
“Wherever you are, find me.”
Nora stared.
Slowly, with trembling fingers, she opened the locket.
She had seen it before.
Of course.
But now she looked differently.
Inside was a tiny faded photograph.
A younger Alexandra holding a baby.
The photograph had been so small, so worn, that Nora had grown up treating the woman’s face as an anonymous figure from before memory.
Now she looked from the photograph to Alexandra.
Back.
Her eyes filled.
“That’s you.”
“Yes.”
Ethan covered his mouth.
He had opened the locket years earlier while cleaning it.
He had seen the photo.
He had never known.
Alexandra reached halfway across the table.
Stopped.
Nora stared at her hand.
Then placed her own hand on the table.
Not touching.
Near.
Alexandra’s fingers trembled.
Nora asked:
“Did you think I died?”
Alexandra made a sound that seemed to come from eight years ago.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Ethan looked toward her.
He needed the answer too.
Alexandra breathed slowly.
“There was an accident.”
“You were with a woman named Miriam Price.”
“She was your nanny.”
“She had worked for us since before you were born.”
“She was taking you from Aspen back to Denver.”
“The car went off a mountain road.”
“It burned.”
“They found…”
Alexandra stopped.
Nora waited.
“They found Miriam.”
“What about me?”
Alexandra’s face crumpled.
“They told me they found enough to know you had been in the car.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“Enough what?”
Alexandra looked at him.
“Your blanket.”
“A piece of the car seat.”
“Blood.”
“A coroner told us…”
Her voice failed.
Ethan stared.
“DNA?”
Alexandra shook her head.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The fire.”
“That doesn't answer.”
“I know.”
Alexandra’s voice turned bitter.
“I know that now.”
“Back then I was twenty-eight.”
“My father had died four months earlier.”
“My company was collapsing.”
“My daughter was missing after a crash.”
“My uncle handled the investigators.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed.
“Your uncle.”
“Yes.”
“Victor Vale.”
Ethan went still.
Alexandra noticed.
“What?”
He looked at Nora.
Then back.
“My wife wrote something down before she died.”
Alexandra leaned forward.
“What?”
“Hannah was a pediatric nurse at Cedar Ridge Regional.”