He took the phone into his lap and waited. Five minutes. Eight minutes. His mother, with her clicking knitting needles, would start to wonder about him. But she wouldn’t come looking.
It didn’t ring again.
Two sets of rings, about three minutes apart, twice each time. It could be a code. Perhaps his father was supposed to have been there to hear it and do something. Call a number? Take some other action without speaking to anyone—just know what to do?
Ten minutes. Eleven minutes. It wasn’t going to ring again. It wasn’t like Judd to forget something like this. Perhaps it was the caller who was off schedule, calling on the off chance that Judd would be there to take the call anyway.
Matthew lifted the phone from his lap to put it away. Turning it over for a few seconds to move the cord out of the way revealed the keys taped to the bottom.
Matthew knew instantly what they were for. And he took them and moved through the darkness, letting his eyes adjust to the shadowed scene as he went.
The first opened the door from Judd’s office into the private hall.
The second opened the door labeled Private Storage.
Matthew stood in the doorframe, his heart pulsating against his rib cage so fast it strangled his breath. He forced an exhale to ground himself and assessed to be sure he would not be locking himself in without a way out. For good measure, he moved a trash can in front of the door to prevent it from closing fully as he fumbled for a light switch. This part of the building had no windows. A light now would not give away his presence.
The trash can had fresh additions, papers towels not yet crusted dry and hair trimmings. The room itself—larger than he’d ever imagined—was furnished with three sets of bunk beds and three cribs, all with folded blankets and bedding. At one end was a bathroom and sink. At the other was an open rack of children’s clothing. Some looked used and washed while other garments appeared brand-new. Going closer, Matthew saw the range of styles was narrow, the same clothing in various sizes and a small variety of colors, like a shopper might buy from the Sears catalog. Even the shoes were arranged that way beneath. A bag of laundry—soiled by the smell of it—was drawn tight, as if ready for pickup.
Matthew didn’t have to wonder if the walls were soundproof. Of course they were. No light. No sound. A secret room furnished for children.
A four-drawer wooden file cabinet stood sentry beside the door—locked, of course. He could pick it, but he was running out of time. His mother would get anxious.
Matthew backed out of the room, retraced his steps down the hall, taped the keys back to the bottom of the phone. At the last minute, he remembered to grab his father’s folder again before returning to the house.
His mother looked up. “I was beginning to wonder.”
“Sorry.”
“Come here and put your arms out.”
“Do you have to measure both? Won’t they be the same?”
“Just to be sure.” She took a measuring tape out of her knitting basket and stood up.
“Mama,” Matthew said.
“Yes?”
Matthew swallowed hard, digging for words.
“What is it, Matthew?” She snapped back the measuring tape, satisfied with the numbers, and sat down again to pick up her needles.
Matthew dropped to the ottoman where he could see her face clearly.
“I found the keys in Pop’s office and I used them.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There’s a phone in a locked drawer, Mama. Normal people don’t do that. And a room full of beds and children’s clothing.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Her words spoke denial, but her face paled.
“Mama, what does Pop do in that room?”
For the first time in Matthew’s life, his mother reached forward and slapped him.
“What are you suggesting, Matthew?”
“I’m not suggesting anything, Mama.” Matthew snatched his mother’s flailing hand as it readied for another assault. “I’m asking questions. I’m old enough.”
“Not for this, you’re not.”
“Then there is something.”
Perspiration poured out of her tidy hairline, and she wrestled her hand from Matthew’s grasp. “You should mind your own business. You were told to mind your own business.”
“I’m not four years old.”
“This is your father’s business.”
“And yours?”
With both hands, she picked up her knitting basket and pitched it across the room. The contents scattered in every direction. “Not mine! Not mine!”
“Mama, tell me.”
She shrieked like the woman in the clinic a few weeks ago who couldn’t find anyone to tell her what happened to her baby. A quilt Grandma Bea made by hand was draped across the back of the davenport, and now his mother grabbed it and drew her knees up to her chin to huddle under it.
“Mama.” Matthew tried to pull the quilt away from her head, but she resisted, only sobbing louder.
What have I done? He had forgotten to take care of her temperament in the urgency of his own mood.
“I’m sorry, Mama. We don’t have to talk about it. Can I make you some tea?”
“I only wanted a baby. Judd wasn’t supposed to snatch things.”
“Mama?” Matthew was dizzy with questions that would have to wait. His mother was disappearing before his eyes. Form folding. Size shrinking. Countenance contracting.
All those years ago. “It’s the same way you got what you wanted.”
Matthew saw dots. The lines were not quite connecting. He grasped for meaning.
“Mama, please come out of there. Let’s have tea. I’ll put extra honey in yours.”
“I don’t want to know. I can’t know!”
“Know what, Mama?”
Without coming out from under the quilt, she toppled sideways on the davenport.
The front door opened. Matthew lurched up.
Judd dropped his Bible on the table beside the front door. “What in the world?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Matthew, what did you do?” Judd rushed into the room.
“I might ask what did you do?”
“Don’t get insolent with me. Explain what happened to your mother.” Judd went to the davenport and wrapped his arms around the frightened bundle that was his wife.
“I found the keys, and I used them to find the room,” Matthew whispered.
Judd clutched Alyce to him, clawing at the quilt to free her head and glaring at Matthew at the same time.
“You destroyed your mother’s life because you broke the one rule I told you never to break only two years ago. You see that, don’t you? Was it worth it? Are you satisfied?”
“I had questions.” Have questions.
“Which you wouldn’t have had if you had obeyed.”
Matthew bit back his response. He’d always had questions.
Judd had Alyce’s face free now and kissed her forehead. “I’m here, Alyce. I’m here. You’ll be all right.”
“We should call the doctor,” Matthew said.
“No.” Judd’s reply would tolerate no argument. “Here. If you think you can manage a moment of kindness rather than self-indulgence, hold your mother.”
Matthew took Judd’s place on the davenport. Judd left the room for a moment, returning from his office with a syringe.
“What are you giving her?”
“Your questions have done enough harm for one night.”
“You’re drugging her? Have you done this before?”
“Matthew.”
Of course he had.
“She has spells,” Judd said. “We’ve protected you all your life, but she depends on me to take care of her at times like this. The medicine helps her through.”
Judd freed Alyce’s arm from the bundling and administered the injection before straightening her out on the davenport and covering her wit
h the quilt.
Neither father nor son spoke as they listened for her breathing to find a pattern that told them she was settled and no longer hearing.
“She said she only wanted a baby and you weren’t supposed to snatch things,” Matthew said softly but with undiminished determination. “What did she mean?”
Judd held one of Alyce’s hands between both of his, taking his time in answering. Finally, he said, “I have assisted with a few adoptions because of connections from my hospital sales days. I make children comfortable during the transition before they are united with the loving families that are waiting for them.”
“The room?”
Judd nodded.
Alyce’s breathing deepened.
“Judd,” Matthew said. “I’m adopted. That’s what she meant. That’s why she… broke.”
Judd’s dark eyes turned their fury on Matthew. “You are a lucky child. You have a loving home with a mother who adores you. You have never wanted for anything. And all you have in return is ingratitude.”
Matthew pointed at the sleeping form. “I love her. But something tells me she is not the only mother broken at the thought of losing me.”
“Stop it, Matthew. If you care about your mother at all, you will never speak of this again. Look what it did to her to even come close to the question. She would give her life for you, and I would give mine for her. Your mother takes very seriously what Jesus said about there being no greater love than being willing to give your life for another.”
Matthew’s throat thickened.
“And stay out of my office, Matthew. Stay out of my desk. I won’t warn you again.”
Alyce was unconscious. Judd kissed her cheek before lifting her in his arms and carrying her up the stairs with befuddling tenderness.
Matthew left the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE
Sorry, it will have to wait until tomorrow.” Nolan checked his pocket for keys and phone and fastened the latches on his soft-sided briefcase.
“I didn’t realize you would be in the office today,” the associate said. “I need a senior-level opinion on this document. If you could just give it a quick read.”
Nolan shook his head and reached for his gray overcoat hanging behind his office door. “I wasn’t planning to be here either. I have an appointment I can’t be late for, and I’m not sure if I’ll be back. If it can’t wait until tomorrow, you can email me the file and I’ll try to read it tonight, or you’ll have to find someone else to consult.”
“It’s only two pages,” the associate said.
“Sorry.” Nolan gestured that the younger man should leave his office and pulled the door closed behind them. He wasn’t taking any chances being late and having Patrick think he wasn’t coming, and he had cleared the afternoon so he could be ready for whatever turn events might take.
Two red lights and a fender bender snarling traffic in a third intersection meant Nolan arrived at the restaurant four minutes late despite his precautions to be early. He satisfied himself that Patrick was not already waiting in one of the booths and let the hostess seat him where he could watch the entrance.
Another five minutes passed. Surely Patrick’s grace period had not expired in those first four minutes.
Nolan sent a text. I’M HERE.
Nothing pinged back, but Patrick was probably driving or negotiating insufficient parking.
Or… Or what?
Outside, snow had begun, and for a flash Nolan wished he were home in the mountains, looking at the view out his office window. Even for January, the season was bringing more snowy days than usual, piling inches of powder on the slopes. Tucker could not have known his ski vacation would be this productive. Nolan fiddled with his phone, tempted to call and reassure himself that Tucker wasn’t on Hidden Run at that very moment.
One thing at a time. He put his phone away. Patrick was the thing right now.
At twenty minutes past the original meeting time, Nolan ordered a cup of coffee as an earnest payment on tying up a booth during the busy lunch shift. At the thirty-minute mark, he ordered an appetizer, the Irish cheddar and mushroom potato bites Patrick had always liked when they were kids. Nolan didn’t know what he liked now. At forty minutes, he was calculating how much money he would leave on the table if Patrick never turned up and he didn’t order a full meal. When the potato bites arrived, Nolan faced the reality of how gelatinous and clammy they would be cold and regretted the choice.
But they were still steaming when Patrick slid into the booth three minutes later. Nolan had never seen his brother with a full red beard before. It looked good, showing none of the gray streaking the hair on his head. He tried to think of the last time he’d seen Patrick. Five years ago? Or seven?
“Hey,” Patrick said, “you remembered.”
The potatoes were the right choice after all.
“For old times’ sake.” Nolan nudged the plate toward Patrick, who reached for it with gusto. Patrick offered no explanation or apology for being forty-five minutes late, and the reason didn’t matter enough to Nolan to risk inflaming the atmosphere with an inquiry. He said simply, “Thanks for coming.”
“I thought maybe you were trying to wait me out and hope I was going away,” Patrick said.
“I was wrong not to take your calls.”
“Did Seamus talk to you?”
“Seamus? No, should he?” Nolan hadn’t spoken to his oldest brother since Christmas.
“I thought maybe he wrangled you into calling me. He threatened to drive out to Canyon Mines and choke some sense into you.”
“Well, he didn’t,” Nolan said. “You can thank Jillian for the sense-choking. But I should have come to it on my own.”
“You could have taken my calls or answered my texts.”
“You’re right.”
“Didn’t you even wonder about the sheer number of times I tried to contact you?”
“I’m sorry. I really have no excuse.”
“Okay then. We got that out of the way.”
Nolan nodded. He deserved the scolding and much more.
“I had some extended business in Denver, so I’ve been staying with Seamus and commuting back and forth,” Patrick said. “And of course visiting Ma and Big Seamus.”
“I’m sure they’ve been glad to see you.”
Patrick fidgeted with his fork. “Big Seamus wants peace between his sons, Nolan. It’s time. He’s not a young man. We can’t do to him what we did to Paddy.”
“No.” Their father had already had the near–heart attack that awakened them all to his mortality. No one had argued with Big Seamus, as Patrick had with Paddy, but the silence of unresolved tension screamed just as loudly through the decades.
The waitress showed up, having patiently invested nearly an hour into whether she was going to make any money off having this booth tied up when it ought to have flipped by now.
“They have St. Paddy’s Irish sandwiches,” Nolan said.
“Corned beef brisket, cabbage, sourdough. Pop Paddy’s favorites.”
“The spicier the mustard, the better. And always dripping on his shirt.”
They laughed softly together at the memory.
“More than thirty years, Nolan,” Patrick said softly. “Longer than…”
“I know. It’s been there longer than it wasn’t.”
“I’ve grown up. I want you to know that. It’s taken awhile. Too long. I might have put a therapist’s kid through college. Or bought a boat. But between Seamus and Big Seamus and Grace sticking by me all these years when I didn’t deserve her, well, I’m here. And I wasn’t going to leave until you agreed to see me even if I had to take off work.”
“Patrick.” Nolan worked to swallow past the knot in his neck. “Pop Paddy promised it to you. I knew that. I had no business admiring it the way I did. I knew what I was doing that day, the things I said, the way I phrased them. I knew it would make Pop Paddy give me what I wanted even though he’d always promised it would be y
ours. That’s where it all started.”
“Yeah, well, we all knew you were a spoiled brat in those days,” Patrick said. “But you were also a grown man, and so was I. I shouldn’t have argued with Pop Paddy. I should have taken it up with you.”
“You probably would have punched my eyeballs out if you had.”
“Probably.”
“I would have deserved it.”
“No. It was a thing. You were still my little brother.”
“Not a very good one,” Nolan said. “I was very good at thinking about myself though.”
“Seamus says you grew up too.”
“I like to think so.”
The food arrived.
“The family blessing?” Nolan said.
Patrick nodded, and they spoke it together. “May you always find nourishment for your body at the table. May sustenance for your spirit rise and fill you with each dawn. And may life always feed you with the light of joy along the way.”
Patrick exhaled, and his green eyes gripped Nolan’s. “I’ve always had that—a true inheritance there was never any reason to squabble over.”
Nolan picked up his fork and separated his fries from the edge of his sandwich for no particular reason. “I shouldn’t have let you leave.”
“I’m not sure you could have stopped me.”
“I could have tried,” Nolan said. “I was there. No one else was. I should have thought about what it would do to Paddy, to Big Seamus and Ma—to the whole family—if you stayed away. Even to my own child someday, who I didn’t know would be born but who has grown up without you in her life. She feels the hole, all because in that moment I just wanted the peace and quiet of having you gone.” He’d watched as Patrick threw a couple of hastily packed bags into the silver Grand Am he was so proud to be driving and peeled away. Not one word left Nolan’s mouth. No urging to stay. No plea to cool off. No apology. No reasoning about what Patrick’s departure—which was not the first one—would do to their mother. Just unadulterated relief.
“I was the one who stayed away except for those few visits when Ma practically begged. My own parents weren’t even at my wedding. Pictures of Brinlee are not the same as a flesh-and-blood granddaughter.”
In the Cradle Lies Page 16