You don’t understand,” she said. “Mary and I were trying to protect him.”
Andrew stopped.
The words were small, but they opened the whole room.
“Mary and you?”
Betty’s face went pale.
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“She’s my daughter,” Betty whispered. “What was I supposed to do?”
Andrew looked at the basement door, at the lock on the outside, at the place where his son had spent five years believing his father did not want him.
“You were supposed to tell the truth,” he said.
He drove home with the photos on his phone and the drawing folded inside his jacket.
When he walked into the kitchen, Harry was sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal in front of him.
He wasn’t eating.
Mary stood by the counter making coffee.
Her movements were too precise.
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“Your mother’s house.”
The coffee pot clattered against the counter.
Mary caught it before it fell.
“What?”
“I saw the basement.”
Harry looked up.
Andrew nodded once.
The relief that crossed his son’s face nearly undid him.
Not happiness.
Not peace.
Just the deep, exhausted relief of finally being believed.
Mary turned around slowly.
“You had no right to go there without talking to me.”
“Harry described it perfectly,” Andrew said. “The mattress. The space heater. The lock. The cardboard over the window.”
Mary’s jaw tightened.
“My mother is clearly unwell.”
“Unwell enough to fake a drowning?”
Mary blinked.
Andrew placed his phone on the kitchen table.
“I took pictures.”
Mary stared at the phone.
Then she looked at Harry.
“Sweetheart,” she said softly, “you’ve been through something terrible. Some memories may feel real even when they’re confused.”
Harry pushed the cereal bowl away.
“I’m not confused.”
Mary smiled, but it did not reach her eyes.
“We’ll talk when you’re calmer.”
Andrew picked up his phone.
“No,” he said. “We’ll talk when the police are here.”
That was the first time Mary looked afraid.
