Then he said, “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“I’m not agreeing to anything beyond this conversation.”
“I understand.”
He sat opposite me, keeping his hands folded on the table.
I noticed the familiar restraint in him, the way he used stillness to hold himself together.
It had once reassured me.
Now it made me wonder how much he had kept from me simply by never volunteering what he did not
think I needed to know.
I set the photograph between us.
His eyes fixed on it, and the quiet in his face changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was attached to the company records Daniel sent me.”
He did not pick it up.
“Do you know the clinic?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you know my mother?”
“I met her once.”
The answer came quickly, as though it had been waiting behind his teeth.
My chest tightened.
