Chapter 6 - The Aunt Who Kept the Light On
Adrian caught up with Wren on the sidewalk but didn't touch her. She was trying to breathe through her mouth, her fingers digging into her own sleeve.
"I didn't tell her," he said.
"She said the name."
"She saw your eyes."
"A million people have blue eyes."
"I know."
"Then why did she say it?"
"Because she misses her niece."
Wren stared at him, more hurt than angry. "What if I'm not the one she misses?"
The question stayed with him while a bus grumbled past and sprayed gray street water against the curb.
"Then I owe her an apology," he said. "And you won't owe either of us a thing."
"You keep saying that."
"I'll keep needing to prove it."
She didn't ride home with him. Instead she walked four blocks to a diner, ordered hot tea, and sat under the fluorescent lights until her hands stopped shaking. Adrian waited outside for a while, then left when she texted him the single word go. He did not answer with questions.
Evelyn called him at eight. He let the phone ring while he considered lying.
"What did you do?" she asked when he picked up.
"I brought someone to hear the music."
"Don't talk to me like I'm one of your employees. That girl looked at a photograph of Iris like she'd stepped into it."
"I can't identify her from that."
"Neither can I. But I know the way she stood with her weight on her left foot. Iris broke her right ankle when she was twelve. She never quite trusted it after that."
Adrian hadn't noticed the ankle.
"What's her name?" Evelyn asked.
"Wren. That's what she wants to be called."
"Can I speak to her?"
"Only if she wants to."
Evelyn exhaled sharply. "You always were good at telling other people what was out of your hands."
"You're right. I was."
Silence. Then Evelyn spoke more quietly.
"I made a birthday cake every February for four years. On the fifth I put away the tin. That wasn't because I'd stopped loving her. I couldn't keep baking for a person who wasn't there to eat. Do you understand?"
"I think so."
"No, you don't. You get to look for people. I had to learn how to stop looking so I could still go to work."
He leaned back against the kitchen counter, one hand over his healing wound. He couldn't argue with that.
The next morning Wren called Evelyn herself. The social worker had helped her request a replacement phone card, and the new number still felt fragile in her mouth. Evelyn answered on the fourth ring.
"This is Wren," she said. "From choir."
A rustle of paper came through the line.
"Hello, Wren."
"I'm not calling to say I'm anyone."
"All right."
"Could I see you somewhere that's not full of pictures?"
Evelyn paused. "There's a coffee shop beside the library. Awful coffee. Wonderful cinnamon rolls."
"I don't like cinnamon."
"Then we already disagree about something."
They met at noon. Wren insisted on sitting with a view of the door, and Evelyn took the chair nearest the wall without asking why. A cashier called numbers too loudly. A toddler threw a spoon and laughed at the noise. Evelyn spread a paper napkin flat with both palms before speaking.
"May I tell you something about my sister? Not about Iris. About Celia."
Wren nodded.
"She could forgive anybody who forgot an appointment. She couldn't forgive anyone who forgot to eat. She kept little jars of peanut butter in her coat pocket and handed them out like medicine. Once she gave one to a man at the bus stop who wasn't hungry. He looked frightened of her."
Wren looked at her cup. "Did she have a ring?"
Evelyn's hands went still.
"A wedding ring?"
"Two bands together. Something blue inside. Maybe."
"The stone was a sapphire. My mother set it inside when Celia was married. She wanted Celia to know the ring was hers, not a man's purchase."
Wren swallowed. "I heard it drop."
Evelyn didn't move.
"The lights were on and then there was smoke," Wren said. "A door stuck. People were screaming. Somebody said don't look back. I don't know if that was her. I keep remembering a hand, but sometimes it's my hand and sometimes it's hers."
Evelyn took a tissue from her pocket. She didn't push it across the table. She simply put it between them where Wren could reach it.
"I believe you remember a fire," Evelyn said. "I'm not going to tell you what every piece means."
Wren's eyes filled. "What if I was there and did something bad?"
"Then we'll find out what actually happened. I won't decide you're bad because you're afraid."
For a long time they said nothing. Evelyn ate half a cinnamon roll. Wren stirred a teaspoon through her tea until the tea went cold.
"There are ways to see if we're related," Evelyn said carefully. "But they won't answer everything. And it can take time."
"I don't have documents."
"We can ask a clinic and an attorney who handles missing-person identifications what is possible. No one gets to collect your DNA unless you choose it."
"Adrian won't like waiting."
"Adrian doesn't get a vote."
Wren looked up, startled into a crooked smile. Evelyn saw it and looked away quickly, rubbing the bridge of her nose.
They parted outside the shop. Evelyn asked whether Wren wanted a hug, and Wren said no. The older woman said okay with such ease that Wren nearly changed her mind.
By evening a local online columnist had posted a speculative headline about Adrian Kane and an unidentified homeless woman. It used the photograph from the salon and guessed she was someone missing from a decade-old fire. The article mentioned Celia Vale by name. A reporter called Evelyn's home twice and asked whether she had "finally located the family fortune."
Wren read the piece in the apartment, sitting with her back against the locked door. She'd not given the reporter anything. She'd scarcely given Evelyn anything. Yet her face was beside a dead woman's name, and strangers were writing jokes beneath it.
When Evelyn phoned, Wren answered without saying hello.
"Did you tell them?"
"No," Evelyn said. "Not a word. I promise."
Wren closed her eyes. Promises were becoming harder to sort.
"I was going to ask," Evelyn said softly, "whether you'd like to come back for choir next week. Not as Iris. Just to listen."
Wren wanted desperately to say yes. Instead she asked the question that had been following her since the stairwell.
"If the test says I'm not her, would you still want me there?"
Evelyn's reply came before she finished the sentence.
"Yes."
It was such an ordinary answer that Wren didn't know what to do with it.
May you like
Then someone knocked on the apartment door and called her by a name she had not spoken aloud in ten years.
"Iris? This is Detective Briggs. I need to ask you about the night of the fire."
