“That is enough.”
“No,” I said.
He looked at me.
“No, it isn’t.”
My voice shook.
I hated that.
I wanted to sound controlled.
Instead I sounded five years old again.
“You told me you were an only child.”
My father closed his eyes for a moment.
“I know.”
“You told me Grandma only had you.”
“I know.”
“So who is that?”
“My younger brother.”
“And he’s alive?”
My father glanced toward my stepmother.
“How much did you tell her?”
My stepmother smiled.
“More than you ever did.”
“What does that mean?”
Neither answered.
I picked up the photograph.
There was writing on the back.
A date.
Twelve years earlier.
Three weeks before my mother died.
Underneath, in handwriting I recognized as my mother’s, were four words.
The brothers and that car.
I looked toward my father.
“What does he have to do with Mom?”
My father removed his jacket slowly.
He laid it across the arm of a chair.
It was such an ordinary movement that I hated it.
Our family was falling apart and he was carefully placing his jacket somewhere it would not wrinkle.
Finally he said, “He was there that night.”
My stomach tightened.
“In the car?”
“Yes.”
“You said it was you and Mom.”
“I know.”
“Was he driving?”
My father said nothing.
That silence answered for him.
I backed away.
My stepmother crossed her arms.
“There you go.”
My father turned on her.
“Do not pretend you did this for her.”
“At least I told her.”
“You planted evidence in her backpack.”
“Because she wouldn’t stop digging.”
I looked at her.
“Digging into what?”
She realized too late that she had said too much.
My father heard it too.
He turned.
“What was she digging into?”
My stepmother’s expression tightened.
“Your daughter has been snooping through this house.”
“No. I noticed you were snooping through my room.”
“You’ve been watching me.”
“Because you kept touching Mom’s things.”
My father looked from her to me.
“What things?”
I pointed toward the old album.
“That.”
His eyes narrowed.
My stepmother laughed bitterly.
“Oh, don’t act shocked. You knew what was in there.”
“You went through those boxes?”
“You hid half your life in a closet and expected your wife never to look?”
“My wife?”
His voice dropped.
“She was my wife.”
For the first time that evening, my stepmother looked hurt.
Real hurt.
Then it hardened into anger.
“There. That’s it, isn’t it?”