Chapter 9
Patrick glanced at the recorder.
“But I think Daniel Cross knew something about Lorenzo’s family.”
The name Cross sounded familiar, though I could not place it.
I stood and walked toward the window.
Snow had begun to gather on the garden wall.
“Why did Lorenzo search the Saint Matthew’s records now?” I asked.
“Maybe he received a warning,” Beatrice said.
“Or maybe he was told to find Patrick again,” I replied.
Patrick shook his head.
“No.”
“You trust him now?”
“No. But if he wanted me found, he would not have warned you away from the building.”
“He might have known warning me would make me stay.”
“You do that often?”
“What?”
“Turn every act of concern into a strategy.”
I looked at him.
“That is how I stayed alive.”
“So did I,” he said.
The difference hung between us.
I had survived by controlling rooms.
Patrick had survived by disappearing from them.
Neither of us knew how to meet in the middle.
He pushed his chair back and stood.
“I need air.”
“It is below freezing.”
“I meant away from this table.”
He walked into the sitting room.
I started after him.
Beatrice stepped into my path.
“Give him a minute.”
“We do not have minutes.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because someone may be looking for us.”
“And because you are afraid he will disappear again.”
I stopped.
She held my gaze.
“You cannot force twelve years into one night,” she said. “He came here. That matters.”
“He came because there was nowhere else to go.”
“No. He came because part of him still hoped you were the brother he remembered.”
Her voice softened.
“Do not punish him for being unsure.”
I looked toward the sitting room.
Patrick stood beside the fireplace, studying a framed photograph of our mother.
“He thinks I became Father,” I said.
Beatrice did not answer immediately.
“Did you?”
The question was gentle.
That made it impossible to dismiss.
I thought of the men who lowered their voices when I entered a room.
The staff who never asked questions.
The decisions I called necessary.
The silence I expected and received.
“I tried not to.”
“That was not what I asked.”
I almost told her she was overstepping.
Then I remembered she had risked everything to keep my brother alive.
Perhaps she had earned the question.
“I became enough like him to understand why Patrick is afraid,” I said.
Beatrice nodded.
“That is a beginning.”
I entered the sitting room alone.
Patrick stood with his back to me.
Our mother’s photograph showed her at twenty-nine, smiling on a beach, wind lifting her dark hair.
“She looked happier before she married him,” Patrick said.
“I used to think that too.”
“You kept this place because of her.”
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly.
“Then maybe you kept more of yourself than you think.”
I stood beside him.
For several seconds, we looked at the photograph together.
“I am sorry,” I said.
Patrick’s expression tightened.
“For what?”
“For not finding you.”
“You thought I was dead.”
“I should have questioned it.”
“You were twenty-seven.”
“I was old enough.”
“You were grieving.”
“I had resources.”
“You had people controlling what those resources showed you.”
I turned toward him.
“You are defending me now?”
“No.”
The corner of his mouth moved slightly.
“I am refusing to let you make yourself the center of everything.”
That sounded exactly like the brother I remembered.
I looked down.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither do I.”
“I want you to come home.”
“I know.”
“But you cannot.”
“Not yet.”
The refusal hurt.
But it no longer felt like rejection.
It felt like a boundary.
And for once, I understood that loving someone did not give me the right to remove all their boundaries.
“What would make you feel safe?” I asked.
Patrick considered the question.
“Choice.”
“You have it.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
May you like
He searched my face.
“If I say I want to leave this house tomorrow without telling you where I go?”
