Brown eyes with a thin gold ring around the iris.
Wide smile.
Clare stepped closer.
Something about her expression changed.
Not recognition.
Disturbance.
“She looks…”
Luke waited.
Clare shook her head.
“Nothing.”
He did not push.
She sat.
The envelope remained in her lap.
Luke poured coffee.
Clare took one sip and looked offended.
“You warned me.”
“Yes.”
Luke sat across from her.
“You don’t have to open it with me here.”
Clare stared at Rachel’s handwriting.
“I don’t think I want to open it alone.”
Luke nodded.
She slid one finger beneath the flap.
Stopped.
Then laughed nervously.
“I negotiate hospital acquisitions for a living.”
Luke said nothing.
“I’ve fired executives twice my age.”
“I believe you.”
“I once testified before a Senate committee for six hours.”
“That sounds horrible.”
“It was.”
She looked down.
“And somehow this is harder.”
Luke understood.
Letters from dead people carried strange weight.
There was no chance to ask them to clarify.
No ability to challenge a sentence and receive another.
The words arrived permanent.
Clare opened the envelope.
Inside were several folded pages.
A photograph slid free.
It struck the desk face-up.
Clare froze.
Luke looked.
Two girls.
One perhaps thirteen.
One an infant.
The older girl sat on a worn sofa holding the baby carefully in both arms.
Luke recognized Rachel immediately.
Younger.
Much younger.
But Rachel.
The infant had enormous dark eyes and thick dark hair.
Clare reached for the picture.
Her fingers trembled.
“That baby…”
Luke looked toward her.
“What?”
Clare touched the photograph.
“I have this picture.”
Luke stared.
“What?”
“Not this exact print.”
Her breathing changed.
“There’s a cropped version in my mother’s house.”
“Cropped?”
“It only shows the baby.”
Clare looked at Luke.
“That’s me.”
Silence.
Luke looked at the photograph again.
The baby.
Clare.
Rachel.
His late wife holding an infant Clare Donovan.
He sat slowly.
Clare turned the photograph over.
Rachel’s handwriting covered the back.
October 1992. Me and my little sister, Claire, three days before they took her away.
Clare made a sound so quiet Luke almost missed it.
“No.”
She stood.
The chair scraped backward.
“No.”
Luke remained seated.
Clare stared at the words.
“My birthday is October twenty-second, 1992.”
Luke said nothing.
“My parents…”
She stopped.
Her breathing accelerated.
Luke rose.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
He did not touch her.
Clare walked toward the window.
Her body had become rigid.
“My mother gave me a cropped version of this when I was sixteen.”
“She said it was taken at the hospital.”
Luke looked at the full photograph.
“This isn’t a hospital.”