“Melissa.”
“Shut up.”
Every guest heard her.
She realized it immediately.
Her face flushed.
I carried the box into the living room and placed it on the coffee table.
It was unlocked.
Inside were old partnership agreements, letters, property records, photographs, and one sealed legal envelope.
But on top was something I had never seen before.
A photograph.
Howard looked perhaps thirty.
Beside him stood his brother Thomas.
And between them was a young woman holding a baby.
I recognized Howard.
I recognized Thomas from old family photographs.
But I did not recognize the woman.
I turned the photograph over.
Three words were written on the back.
Thomas, Caroline, Daniel.
My heart stopped.
Daniel was standing behind me.
“What?”
He took the photograph.
His face drained of color.
“That isn’t possible.”
Melissa suddenly sat down.
Nobody spoke.
I looked at my son.
My only child.
The baby I had carried.
The boy whose scraped knees I had bandaged.
The teenager whose bedroom door I had knocked on every morning.
The man I had loved for forty-one years.
“That isn’t you,” I whispered.
Daniel stared at the photograph.
“I know.”
Of course he knew.
I had given birth to him.
But then why had Howard written Daniel?
I opened the legal envelope.
Inside was a notarized statement dated thirty-eight years earlier.
The first paragraph answered the question.
Thomas and Caroline had also had a son.
A son named Daniel Thomas Mercer.
My Daniel had been named Daniel Howard Mercer.
Two cousins.
The same first name.
One born only months before the other.
I had never known.
Howard had never told me.
Thomas and Caroline separated shortly afterward. Caroline left Ohio with their child. Thomas later died.
According to Howard’s statement, Caroline had refused all contact with the Mercer family.
But the final page contained something stranger.
Thomas’s share of the old partnership had never legally transferred to Howard.
And the land on which my house stood had originally been purchased through that partnership.
Howard had spent years clearing the title.
The final transfer had eventually been completed.
I flipped to the deed.
There was no ambiguity.
The house belonged to me.
Not Daniel.
Not Melissa.
Me.
Solely.
I felt relief for perhaps three seconds.
Then I saw another document.
A letter dated seven months earlier.
Not from Howard.
From an attorney in Cincinnati.
It was addressed to Daniel T. Mercer.
I looked at my son.
“Seven months ago?”
He shook his head.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Melissa stood abruptly.
“I think everybody should leave.”
Nobody moved.
I held up the letter.
“You’ve seen this, haven’t you?”
“No.”
“Then sit down.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Sit.”
Something in my voice made her obey.
I opened the letter.
The attorney represented a man named Daniel Thomas Mercer Jr.
The son of Howard’s nephew.
Thomas’s grandson.
The letter explained that the man had been investigating old Mercer partnership assets after his father’s death.
And he believed there might be a residual financial interest connected to Howard’s estate.
Not ownership of my house.
Money.
Potentially substantial money.
