“That nickname didn’t exist outside Douglas and me.”
Douglas’s face had gone pale.
Not the pallor of illness.
Something else.
“Hannah.”
“What?”
“There was one other person who knew it.”
I stared at him.
“Who?”
“Your father.”
I remembered immediately.
A summer afternoon.
Douglas calling through our kitchen window.
“Ruthie!”
My father laughing behind me.
“Ruthie?”
I had thrown a dish towel at Douglas.
He’d ducked.
My father had repeated the name for weeks just to annoy me.
I closed my eyes.
“Oh, God.”
Lucas sat down slowly.
“So your father knew.”
“Knew what?”
I snapped.
“No one has answered the simplest question in this room. Who was that baby?”
Douglas watched me for a long moment.
Then he looked toward his son.
“Give Hannah the report.”
Lucas didn’t move.
“What report?” I asked.
Douglas spoke again.
“The one you found after Margaret died.”
Lucas’s jaw tightened.
