I stared.
“What is this?”
Samuel slid the photograph closer.
“That,” he said, pointing to the woman beside Richard, “was Grace Caldwell.”
Ethan’s mother.
I looked at him.
“No.”
“I didn’t know her well,” Samuel said. “But your parents did.”
I picked up the photograph.
My mother and Grace had their arms around each other.
They looked young.
Happy.
Familiar.
Not acquaintances.
Friends.
“Where did you get this?”
“Your father mailed it to me.”
“When?”
“1993.”
On the back, written in my father’s handwriting, were four names.
Daniel and Eleanor Hayes.
Richard and Grace Caldwell.
Below them:
Still trying to figure out civilian life.
I read the line twice.
Then a third time.
Walt leaned forward.
“Richard knows your parents?”
“He never said anything.”
Samuel looked thoughtful.
“Maybe he didn’t recognize you.”
“My last name hasn’t changed.”
“Hayes isn’t rare.”
“Neither is Victoria.”
“No.”
I stared again at the photograph.
Then I noticed something.
My mother was wearing a silver bracelet.
A simple chain with a small round charm.
I knew that bracelet.
It was in the jewelry box in my bedroom.
I had inherited it after she died.
Grace Caldwell had her hand resting over the charm.
