PART 2:
Officer Dennison was a tired-looking man in his fifties with a small notepad and a careful voice.
He sat across from Harry in the living room while his partner, Officer Torres, stood near the door.
“Can you tell me where you’ve been, Harry?” Dennison asked.
“At Grandma Betty’s house,” Harry said. “In the basement.”
Mary stood near the kitchen doorway with her arms crossed.
Andrew watched her instead of the officers.
Harry described the basement in plain details.
The mattress.
The cardboard over the high window.
The space heater.
The bucket in the corner.
The lock on the outside of the door.
Officer Torres stopped writing when Harry said that.
Mary’s face stayed calm.
Too calm.
Then Dennison asked about the body they had buried five years ago.
Andrew felt the room shift.
“The face was damaged from the water,” Andrew said. “I wasn’t sure. Mary identified him.”
Every eye moved to Mary.
She lifted her chin.
“I was his mother,” she said. “I knew his birthmark. His scar.”
“But it wasn’t him,” Officer Torres said.
Mary’s mouth tightened.
“Obviously, I made a terrible mistake.”
Later that night, after the officers left, Mary locked herself in the bedroom.
Andrew slept on the floor beside Harry because Harry begged him not to leave.
Before dawn, Andrew drove to Betty’s house on Oakwood Street.
Betty opened the door six inches, pale and shaking.
“I need to see your basement,” Andrew said.
She tried to block him.
He didn’t raise his voice.
“Open the door.”
When he walked down those wooden stairs, the smell hit him first.
Damp concrete.
Old laundry soap.
Dust.
Then he saw it.
A thin mattress against the wall.
A folded pile of boys’ clothes.
A crate used as a table.
Crayon drawings taped to concrete.
And on the doorframe, right where Harry said it would be, a sliding bolt lock.
Andrew took out his phone and began taking photos.
Behind him, Betty whispered, “He was safe.”
Andrew turned around.
“He was a child,” he said. “And you locked him away.”
Part 3 – Ending:
Betty stood at the top of the basement stairs in her bathrobe, holding the railing like her knees might give out.
Andrew kept taking pictures.
The mattress.
The lock.
The covered window.
The children’s books stacked in a milk crate.
The drawings taped to the wall.
One drawing stopped him.
It showed three stick figures.
One was labeled Dad.
One was labeled Me.
The third stood far away on the other side of the paper.
Mom.
Andrew folded the drawing carefully and placed it in his jacket pocket.
Betty watched him do it.
