lifted the small box.
“Your brother talked about you every day.”
Clara’s eyes filled with tears.
“How?”
Daniel took a breath.
“Because I was there.”
The room seemed to become completely still.
I stepped outside and closed the door behind me.
“Tell me everything.”
Daniel nodded.
“I will.”
He looked down at the box.
“But not here.”
I didn’t trust him.
I didn’t even know if I believed what I was seeing.
But something in his expression wasn’t the expression of a man who had come to cause harm.
It was the expression of someone who had been carrying something heavy for a very long time.
I opened the door again.
“Come inside.”
Daniel entered.
Clara hadn’t moved.
Maya and Sophie were standing beside her, confused and frightened.
I introduced him.
“This is Daniel. He was Ethan’s best friend.”
Clara stared at him.
“You knew my brother?”
Daniel smiled sadly.
I knew him better than almost anyone.”
Clara wiped her cheeks.
“Then why have I never met you?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Because your mother asked me not to come back.”
Clara turned toward me.
“Mom?”
I closed my eyes.
That was true.
But it wasn’t the whole truth.
“I asked him to stay away,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because after Ethan died, every person who knew him reminded me of what I’d lost.”
Daniel nodded.
“But there was another reason.”
He placed the blue-wrapped box on the table.
“I promised Ethan something.”
Clara slowly sat down.
“What did he ask you to promise?”
Daniel looked at her.
“That if something happened to him, I would watch over you.”
Clara’s face crumpled.
“He knew?”
“He knew the surgery was risky.”
“So he asked you to watch me?”
