Chapter 2 - The Man in the Photograph
Callum took the photograph first.
His fingers pressed against its edges as he examined the three men.
The image was old enough that the colors had begun to fade. Edmund stood in the center, younger and broad-shouldered, with one arm around Jonathan.
On Edmund’s other side was a man Maren had never seen.
He had dark hair, a crooked smile, and a small crescent-shaped mark beside his left eyebrow.
Owen had the same mark.
Not similar.
The same.
Maren reached for the photograph.
“Who is he?”
Edmund turned toward the window.
Patricia answered.
“No one.”
Helena gave a low, humorless laugh.
“Thirty years of lies, and that is still the best you can do?”
Callum stepped closer to his grandfather.
“Who is he?”
Edmund’s reflection stared back from the glass.
“My eldest son.”
Callum stopped breathing.
“My father was your eldest son.”
“No.”
The word came quietly.
“He was not.”
Patricia crossed the kitchen.
“This has nothing to do with the wedding.”
“It has everything to do with the wedding,” Helena said.
Callum looked again at the photograph.
“What was his name?”
“Adrian,” Edmund replied.
Maren felt the room shift.
She had heard that name before.
Not from the Bellweathers.
From Owen.
When he was three, he had gone through a phase of talking to an imaginary friend named Adrian. He claimed the friend sat beside his bed when he was frightened and told him stories about boats.
Maren had assumed he had heard the name at preschool.
Now her hands went cold.
“What happened to him?” Callum asked.
Edmund did not answer.
Patricia did.
“He died.”
Helena opened the sealed envelope.
“That is the official version.”
She removed a death certificate and placed it beside the photograph.
The certificate stated that Adrian James Bellweather had died in a boating accident twenty-eight years earlier. His body had not been recovered.
Callum read every line.
“This was before I was born.”
“Two years before,” Helena said.
“And my father never told me he had a brother?”
“Jonathan was ordered not to.”
“Ordered by whom?”
Helena looked at Edmund.
The old man closed his eyes.
“By me.”
Callum’s anger sharpened.
“You erased your own son?”
“I believed he was dangerous.”
“Dangerous to whom?”
“To all of us.”
Patricia moved beside Edmund.
“Adrian was unstable. He stole from the company. He threatened his father. He tried to destroy the family.”
Helena took another document from the folder.
“No. He discovered the company was being used to hide illegal transfers.”
Patricia’s expression changed.
“Careful.”
“You have silenced enough people.”
Helena pushed the document toward Callum.
It was a report bearing the Bellweather Holdings letterhead.
The report listed payments to shell companies in Malta, Cyprus, and the Cayman Islands. Beside several transactions were handwritten initials.
P.B.
Patricia Bellweather.
Callum stared at his mother.
“You were twenty-four when this was written.”
“I worked in the company treasury department.”
“You signed these transfers.”
“I signed what I was told to sign.”
“By my father?”
“By Adrian.”
Helena shook her head.
“Another lie.”
Edmund abruptly crossed the kitchen and closed the folder.
“That is enough.”
Callum seized his wrist.
“No. You don’t decide when this is enough.”
Edmund looked at his grandson’s hand, then at his face.
For the first time, he appeared old.
Not dignified.
Not powerful.
Simply old.
“Adrian disappeared because of a choice I made,” he said.
“What choice?”
“I chose the company.”
The answer settled over them like dust.
Maren looked at the photograph again.
Owen’s crescent-shaped mark seemed to burn from the paper.
“Why does he look like my son?”
Patricia’s head turned sharply toward her.
“He doesn’t.”
“He does.”
“Many children resemble strangers.”
“He has the same birthmark.”
Helena’s gaze moved to Maren.
“When was Owen born?”
Maren hesitated.
“Five years ago. October seventeenth.”
“And his biological father?”
The question cut through her.
Callum moved immediately to her side.
“That is none of your business.”
“It may be the only thing that matters.”
Maren folded her arms, protecting herself from memories she had spent years placing in locked rooms of her mind.
“Owen’s father left before I knew I was pregnant.”
“What was his name?”
“Evan.”
“His surname?”
“He never told me the truth about it.”
Patricia made a sound of contempt.
Callum ignored her.
Maren continued, her voice unsteady.
“We met when I was working at a bookstore in Brighton. He came in every Thursday for three months. He said he repaired antique furniture. He lived in a rented room near the harbor.”
Helena reached slowly for the photograph.
“Did he have a scar beside his left eyebrow?”
Maren looked at her.
“No. But he had one on his shoulder. A long scar, like a burn.”
Edmund staggered backward.
The color left his face.
Helena noticed.
“You know that scar.”
Edmund gripped the counter.
“Adrian had it.”
Patricia turned on him.
“Stop talking.”
Maren shook her head.
“That’s impossible. Adrian would have been nearly fifty.”
“He would have been fifty-one,” Helena said.
“Evan was in his thirties.”
“Did you ever see identification?”
“No.”
“Did he avoid photographs?”
Maren remembered the only picture she had taken of him.
A blurred figure turning away on the beach.
“He hated cameras.”
Callum’s face tightened.
“You think Owen’s father was Adrian?”
“No,” Helena said. “I think Owen’s father may have been Adrian’s son.”
The kitchen became silent again.
Edmund stared at Owen’s abandoned rose on the floor.
Patricia took one step toward the leather folder.
Callum blocked her.
Helena removed a final item.
A hospital bracelet.
The name printed on it had faded, but the date was visible.
Twenty-nine years earlier.
Beneath the date were two words.
May you like
Baby Bellweather.
Maren barely had time to read them before Patricia snatched the bracelet and threw it into the fireplace.
