Imogen
Fog creeps across the Holloways’ charming green estate, the exterior walls seeming to drink in the porch lights.
Though I can hardly see the porch itself, like the world ends where their front door begins.
The windows are lit, proving someone is inside.
I don’t see Rory’s car in the driveway, but I hope Mara and Emmett are home.
I cautiously climb the steps, ensuring I don’t slip, or step wrong, the wind battering rain against my back.
Wrapping my hood tighter, nose going numb in the cold, I reach out and ring the bell.
When the door opens, Emmett stands on the other side in an old flannel, a dishtowel looped in his hand like I caught him doing chores.
The heat hits me as soon as I cross the threshold, sending cozy shivers down my body. The house smells of firewood and lemon oil, warm, clean, homey.
“Actually, I’m not here for Rory.”
He leads me to the kitchen, the dishwasher open, racks pulled. “Oh?” An indiscernible look crosses his face. Guilt? Fear? He grabs a plate, wiping it dry with the towel. “Everything okay?”
I move across the kitchen island, pulling a stool and taking a seat. I’m anxious to bring up his text with Harrison. If I do, I’ll have to explain how I saw it. In his house, after I broke in, would be the only answer. I reach for the photos in my pocket instead.
“I was going through some of my mom’s things,” I say, looking up at him across the counter. “And I found these photos.”
I place the images taken in the delivery room on his counter. Emmett places a freshly dried water glass on the granite, smiling as he looks at them. “Wow. Adorable,” he tuts. “I bet you’re finding a lot of old stuff, huh?”
“I didn’t know you were there that day. In the delivery room, no less.” My tone is polite but firm.
“Yeah,” he laughs, nodding. “That was a hectic day—a beautiful day. Your mom never told you about it?”
“No. So it’s kind of surprising to see you in the pictures. I didn’t even know your friendship went that far back,” I say, lighthearted, adjusting on my stool. “My dad wasn’t there, though?”
He swallows, snatching a pot from the top rack. “I-I don’t know what to say,” he stutters. “This isn’t really my news to give. But… no. He wasn’t there. He left your mom right before you two were born. We all kind of… took space from him after that. And then he disappeared.”
I decide to ask the hard question. The one that makes me sick with nausea. But the one I’m led to ask after seeing the photo of Emmett holding her belly at the Christmas party, and the ones of him helping deliver my sister and me. My lip trembles as I open it to speak. “So… he’s not you?”
His neck snaps back in shock. “Who’s not me?”
“Are you my dad, Emmett?” I ask, hands pressed against the cold counter. It’s a silly, sickening thought—one I don’t even believe. But it’s the only thing I can say that might make him spill. “Did you love her? Is that why you were there that day?”
“What?” It almost comes out as a laugh, but then his whole disposition tightens.
“I was there because he left your mom with no one. Your grandparents couldn’t be there.
So… Mara and I met Alice at the hospital.
Rory was a baby then.” He pinches his nose, thinking.
“Mara was in and out, caring for him, supporting your mom. Back and forth. We were the closest people to her. We were neighbors.” He closes the dishwasher and leans against the opposite counter, facing me, arms folded.
“Your mom had bought the house the year earlier, I think—right around the time we bought this house. She wanted to have a family. And then she got pregnant with you girls—only a few months after we got pregnant with Rory.”
I sigh, the sound loud in the quiet, open kitchen. “I’m sick of this game,” I say. It comes out gentle, but frustrated, defeated. “I want to know what’s going on. Who is he? Why did he disappear? Where did he go?”
Emmett is visibly uncomfortable again. His face tightens. “I just… I don’t think that’s for me to share. Your mom never wanted him in your lives. Because he didn’t try to be a part of them.”
This much, I knew. But hearing him say it aloud is like being told I was unwanted all over again.
“Is he dead?” I ask. “What happened to him?”
Emmett exhales softly, eyes shooting to the floor. “No, he’s not dead,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “And yes… he knows Alice is gone.”
My cheeks burn with anger, my vision warps. I gather the photographs, shove them back into my pocket, and slide off the stool, its legs screeching against the floor. My eyes prick with tears, hot and humiliated.
“I have to go,” I choke out. “Forget it. I don’t even want to know who he is. This”—my hand flails uselessly as I walk across the room—“this just proves it. He never cared.”
“Imogen, wait.”
“Why?” I say, eyes watering. “You’re not going to tell me anything. I just want to get out of this place. And never come back.”
I don’t blame Emmett. Mom is gone, and he doesn’t want to bear the burden of whatever truth she took with her. But I won’t stand here and be lied to.
“I think…” Emmett starts. “I think he wants to talk to you. He just… he doesn’t know how.”
I turn to him, running fingers across my face, clearing tears. At this point, I feel numb. Like my insides have been scraped out.
He continues. “I’m seeing him tonight,” he admits with defeat, like he’s ashamed. “I’ll tell him he has to come forward.”
Wait…
“You’re seeing him tonight?” I ask slowly, testing. “You’re friends with him? You said he disappeared.”
Emmett’s mouth opens, then closes. His jaw shifts. “I’ve known him for a long time. We all did. Your mom and Harry—”
My heart slams against my ribs. “Harry.” My voice thins to a whisper. I think back to the text I read today. And there’s only one conclusion I can come to. “As in Harrison? Klein?”
The room tilts; the floor feels miles away.
He flinches like he’s been shot, lips pressing together in regret for saying it out loud. He doesn’t speak, but his silence says enough.
I stumble a half step back, like the words physically hit me, too.
The man in the black house.
My father.
The drawings, the weirdness toward me in the tavern, the idea that he’s been lingering around me. However ludicrous, unbelievable… it makes sense now. But I still can’t believe it. I don’t want to.
“You know him?” Emmett looks shocked, then guilty again. “We only started talking again after your mom passed. He moved away for a while after you and your sister were born. He rented out his house—which used to be his parents’. This is where he grew up. So… he eventually came back.”
“And he’s been across the lake?” I ask. “Ever since? He watched me grow up from afar? And he chose not to actually be a part of our lives?”
Emmett lowers his gaze, taking a few steps closer. “He thought it was what your mom wanted after he left. He didn’t know how to fix it.”
“And he didn’t even try to,” I say, turning toward the door.
I think back to Amelia’s story, of Harrison and Mom fighting on his dock. Did they argue over his role as our father? Did he want to come back? Did she push him away?
“Imogen—”
“Thank you, Emmett. Really. But I need to go home,” I say, sniffing. “Tell him whatever you want.”
This past week, his actions, which I’ve considered eerie and foreboding, had a deeper significance. He wasn’t watching me so I could be his next victim, but instead—I imagine—to observe me; his biological creation in his midst for the first time since my teenhood.
And still, he was too chicken to do anything about it.
Suddenly, his text to Emmett makes sense.
I twist the doorknob, push into the gray-washed afternoon, and let the Holloway house disappear into the fog behind me.
I drop my keys on the entry table, and they clatter against the wood with a hollowness that echoes across the emptied house. My feet drag until they reach the center of the living room. Then they give out entirely and I collapse on the rug.
The tears come before I even register I’m crying again. One after another, they break loose, spilling hot down my face as I press my cheek into the soft, shabby chic rug.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice comes out small, ragged, aimed at no one and everything at once. “Why did you keep this from us?”
It sounds pathetic, hearing myself beg an empty room for answers. But I continue anyway, talking to Mom like her spirit is here.
“Did you think I didn’t deserve a dad? Or that I couldn’t handle the truth?” My voice cracks. “You were all I needed. But I deserved to know.”
I bury my face into my palms and rock, unsure if I’m angry at her, or at myself for not asking sooner.
When I finally push myself upright, I stumble toward the dining room.
Wiping my eyes again, ready to persevere, push through the madness, I grab another box and fill it with wine from the dining room’s bar.
I meditate in it, tempted to drown myself in each bottle.
But I load it all up instead, and finally, I remove two candlesticks from the dining table, placing them at the top of the box.
If I don’t keep myself busy until Amelia comes home, until I can tell her everything, I’ll really lose it.
I plop the newly taped box on the dining table and stare at a scatter of pale flecks across the table’s surface—so faint I almost mistake them for dust motes caught in the dim light. There’s more in the center, atop the antique wood, settled deep into the grain like fine sand.
I lean in, dragging my fingertips gently across it, ready to brush them away. But they don’t smear like crumbs. They splinter and crackle beneath my skin.
Paint shavings.
My gaze sharpens. I straighten slowly and follow the trail upward.
Directly above the table, I see it: a square cutout in the ceiling—the attic door. Through the tiny crack where the panel doesn’t sit flat, a sliver of light gleams.
I freeze. I had forgotten we even had an attic. Amelia and I never went up there as kids—Mom said it was just insulation and broken lamps. And yet… here it is. Cracked open.
A flicker of rationality tries to soothe me. Maybe when I wasn’t home yesterday, Amelia and Wes remembered it and hauled down whatever was left. Maybe that light is coming from the little window in the A-frame.
I drag a chair to the table and climb onto the ancient wood, bracing my palms on the hatch door. Dust rains down when I push, but the panel gives way easily, slides over, revealing the gap above.
Cool, stale air breathes down on me.
I lift my head into the opening, shoulders tight, half of me still dangling over the dining room below.
I allow my eyes to adjust to the change in light, my hands perched on the attic floor, resting shoulder-length with my elbows in acute angles, ready to hoist me up and inside.
Without scanning the room in its entirety yet, with whatever’s behind my head still a mystery, I’m taken aback.
The room isn’t empty, nor occupied by boxes of decorations or homework from childhood—the things you’d imagine would be in an attic.
Not even broken lamps. Instead, there are items scattered around the floor. Items that shouldn’t be up here.
And as I process what I’m seeing, all I can do is gasp in horror.