Caroline lunged.
She actually grabbed my wrist.
“Ryan, stop.”
I stared at her.
“Get your hand off me.”
Her fingers loosened.
Behind the wall, something moved.
A small scrape.
Then a whimper.
I removed the screws.
Caroline covered her mouth.
I pulled the vent free.
Darkness yawned behind it.
Then two enormous brown eyes appeared.
A child.
I stopped breathing.
She was maybe five.
Possibly six.
Her hair was tangled around a narrow face. She wore oversized gray sweatpants and a red sweater with a torn cuff.
She looked terrified.
I reached toward her.
“It’s okay.”
Caroline whispered my name.
The little girl flinched at my hand.
Then stared at my face.
Really stared.
As though recognizing something she had spent years imagining.
She crawled forward.
Her knees emerged first, then her tiny hands.
She was painfully thin.
I caught her as she slipped from the opening.
She smelled like dust, sweat, and strawberry shampoo.
For one strange second, she simply rested against me.
Then she looked up.
Tears filled her eyes.
And she said one word.
“Daddy.”
The room became absolutely silent.
I looked at Caroline.
She had backed against the doorframe.
“No.”
The word came out of me like a cough.
The girl touched my cheek.
“Ryan.”
She knew my name.
I pushed myself backward.
“Who are you?”
Caroline moved quickly.
“She’s confused.”
The girl recoiled from her.
“No.”
“Sweetheart—”
“No!”
Her scream was so violent Lily began crying harder.
The child wrapped both arms around me.
Caroline froze.
I looked down.
“Tell me your name.”
She hesitated.
“Maya.”
“Maya what?”
Her gaze flicked toward Caroline.
“Maya Mercer.”
I felt the floor tilt beneath me.
My last name.
Caroline shook her head.
“Ryan, listen to me.”
“No. You listen to me.”
My voice cracked through the room.
“There is a child living inside our wall. She knows my name. She has my last name. You knew she was there.”
“I can explain.”
“Then explain!”
Maya suddenly reached into the waistband of her sweatpants.
She pulled out a folded photograph.
The edges were nearly destroyed from being opened so many times.
She handed it to me.
I unfolded it.
A teenage boy stood beside a lake holding a fishing rod.
Me.
I was fourteen.
I recognized the faded blue shirt, the summer camp dock, even the scar on my left knee.
But I had never seen that picture.
Beside me stood a woman whose face had been folded backward until it was hidden.
I looked at Maya.
“Where did you get this?”
She whispered, “Mama.”
Caroline closed her eyes.
My hands began shaking.
“My mother never came to that camp.”
Maya frowned.
“Not your mommy.”
She pointed at the hidden woman.
“My mama.”
I slowly unfolded the crease.
The woman beside fourteen-year-old me had dark hair.
She was smiling.
And although twenty-five years had passed since the photograph was taken, I recognized her.
