Chapter 1 - The House With Too Many Rules)
Gary Whitlock liked rules.
He liked them written down.
He liked them repeated.
Most of all, Brooke believed he liked the sound of other people obeying them.
Do not leave shoes by the stairs.
Do not eat in the living room.
Do not touch the thermostat.
Do not open the cabinet above the refrigerator.
Do not use Gary’s office.
Do not answer the house phone after eight.
Do not bring friends inside unless Gary had approved them.
Do not ask where Gary was going.
Do not ask when he would be back.
And, since three weeks earlier, do not allow Ethan to use paint anywhere except the basement.
The last rule existed because Ethan had gotten a streak of green watercolor on the edge of Gary’s favorite kitchen chair.
Brooke had cleaned it before Gary came home.
Gary still noticed.
He noticed everything.
That Thursday afternoon, Brooke sat at the kitchen table finishing a history assignment while Ethan colored beside her.
Outside, late summer sunlight stretched across the quiet suburban street. Their neighborhood sat northeast of Columbus, Ohio, in one of those developments where nearly every lawn looked recently cut and nearly every house had a basketball hoop or American flag somewhere near the garage.
From outside, their home looked safe.
Brooke had learned that houses could lie.
Ethan held up a drawing.
“Is that supposed to be me?”
Brooke studied the page.
The figure had brown hair, huge blue eyes and arms that nearly touched the ground.
“That better not be me.”
“It is.”
“My arms do not look like that.”
“You’re reaching for pizza.”
“That explains it.”
Ethan grinned.
Brooke smiled back.
Making Ethan laugh had become a private victory.
He laughed less now.
That frightened her more than Gary’s shouting.
Their mother entered carrying grocery bags.
Laura Whitlock had the same brown hair as Brooke, though hers was shorter. At forty, she still looked younger whenever Gary was away.
Whenever Gary entered the room, something changed.
Her shoulders became tighter.
Her voice became smaller.
She began checking the time.
Brooke had noticed all of it.
“Gary coming home soon?” she asked.
Her mother paused.
“Probably around six.”
“Probably?”
“He didn’t say exactly.”
Brooke looked toward Ethan.
Ethan immediately began gathering his crayons.
Laura noticed.
“He doesn’t need to put those away.”
“He will when Gary gets here.”
“Brooke.”
“What?”
“Not everything needs to become an argument.”
Brooke stared at her.
“That’s funny.”
Laura began putting groceries into the refrigerator.
“What is?”
“Gary says the exact same thing right before he starts one.”
“Please.”
That word.
Brooke hated that word.
Please be quiet.
Please don’t provoke him.
Please do what he says.
Please think about Ethan.
As though Brooke were the problem for noticing.
She stood.
“I’m going upstairs.”
“Finish your homework.”
“I already did.”
“You just said you were working on history.”
“I lied.”
Laura sighed.
Brooke headed toward the doorway.
“Brooke.”
She stopped.
Her mother had something in her hand.
A letter.
Brooke recognized the handwriting immediately.
Her grandmother’s.
Grandma Evelyn had died five months earlier.
Brooke turned around.
“Where did you get that?”
“I found it in one of her cookbooks.”
Laura placed the envelope on the counter.
Brooke walked closer.
Her name was written across it.
BROOKE.
Nothing else.
“Why didn’t she mail it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
Brooke picked it up.
The envelope had already been sealed and reopened once.
She looked at her mother.
Laura looked away.
“You opened it.”
“I wanted to make sure it wasn’t something upsetting.”
“It has my name on it.”
“I’m your mother.”
“That doesn’t mean everything belongs to you.”
Laura’s jaw tightened.
“Read it or don’t.”
Brooke pulled out a single folded page.
The letter contained only four sentences.
Brooke,
If you ever feel unsafe, trust what you see, not what someone tells you that you saw.
The old phone matters.
Three knocks means open the door.
Love always,
Grandma
Brooke read it twice.
“What does this mean?”
Laura was suddenly interested in rearranging cans in the pantry.
“Probably nothing.”
“Grandma didn’t write things that meant nothing.”
“She was sick.”
“She had cancer. She wasn’t confused.”
Laura shut the cabinet harder than necessary.
“Enough.”
Brooke folded the letter.
“The old phone matters?”
“I don’t know.”
“Three knocks?”
“I said I don’t know.”
Brooke studied her mother.
Laura’s hands were trembling.
That was when the garage door began to rise.
Ethan stopped coloring.
Brooke heard the mechanical rumble.
Her mother looked at the kitchen clock.
5:07.
Gary was almost an hour early.
Laura whispered, “Put that letter away.”
Brooke did not move.
“What?”
“Now.”
The door from the garage opened.
Gary stepped inside carrying a black briefcase.
He smiled.
It was a normal smile.
That made Brooke more nervous than yelling would have.
“Everybody home?”
Laura turned.
“Hi.”
Gary kissed her cheek.
Then he looked toward Brooke.
Then Ethan.
Then the envelope in Brooke’s hand.
His smile disappeared.
“What’s that?”
Brooke slipped it into her pocket.
“Nothing.”
Gary set down his briefcase.
“Show me.”
“It’s mine.”
“I didn’t ask whose it was.”
Ethan looked down at his crayons.
Laura stepped between them.
“It’s from Mom.”
Gary’s eyes shifted toward her.
For one second, Laura looked frightened.
Then Gary smiled again.
“Evelyn?”
Brooke said nothing.
“What did she have to say?”
“It was personal.”
Gary walked closer.
Brooke could smell his aftershave.
“Evelyn had a habit of sticking her nose into places it didn’t belong.”
“She was my grandmother.”
“And I’m responsible for this house.”
“No one asked you to be responsible for my mail.”
Gary’s expression hardened.
Laura whispered, “Brooke.”
There it was again.
Brooke reached into her pocket.
She considered handing over the letter.
Instead she tore it in half.
Gary blinked.
Brooke tore it again.
And again.
Then she dropped the pieces into her empty water glass.
“There.”
Gary stared at her.
“No problem anymore.”
She walked out of the kitchen before he could answer.
Upstairs, she closed her bedroom door and locked it.
Then she opened her phone case.
The original letter was hidden inside.
The one she had destroyed was a blank sheet she had switched beneath the kitchen table while Gary watched her mother.
Grandma Evelyn had taught her card tricks when she was little.
Always make them watch the wrong hand.
Brooke unfolded the real letter again.
The old phone matters.
Three knocks means open the door.
She turned the page over.
There was something she had missed.
At the bottom, written so faintly that it appeared only when she held the paper toward the window, was a phone number.
Under it were two words.
Ask for Adam.
Brooke stopped breathing.
She knew that name.
She had not heard anyone say it in years.
Adam was her father.
And Ethan’s.
The man their mother said had abandoned them nine years ago.
The man Gary had forbidden them from discussing.
Brooke immediately searched the number online.
No result.
She typed the first three digits.
Ohio area code.
She began entering the whole number.
Then someone knocked on her bedroom door.
Not three times.
Once.
Gary’s voice came through the wood.
“Brooke?”
She locked her phone.
“What?”
“I need your phone.”
Her fingers tightened around it.
“Why?”
Gary paused.
Then said quietly, “Because I said so.”
Brooke looked at the hidden number.
May you like
For the first time in years, she wondered whether her father had truly disappeared.
Or whether someone had made sure he could never reach them.
