Chapter 2 - The Locked Drawer
"Give me the key."
Ryan didn't move.
Noah had finally stopped screaming. I held him under his nursery lamp while Ryan checked his breathing and wiped the last milk from his neck.
Linda stood near the front door, no longer crying.
"Sarah, this isn't the time," Ryan said.
"You just told your mother she promised not to do this again. So yes. This is exactly the time."
"It has nothing to do with Noah."
Linda laughed once. "Tell her that. See what happens."
Ryan turned on her. "Go upstairs."
"This is my son's house."
"Go upstairs."
She stared at him, then at me, and walked away.
I waited until her bedroom door closed.
"Key."
Ryan took a small brass key from behind his driver's license.
Inside the drawer was no money. No gun. No affair.
There was a thick brown envelope with my husband's name written across it in an old man's handwriting.
RYAN - OPEN WHEN YOU BECOME A FATHER.
My skin went cold.
"Your dad?"
Ryan nodded.
Frank Mercer had died four years before Noah was born.
Ryan opened the envelope. His hands were shaking.
Inside were photocopied hospital records, a yellowed newspaper clipping, and a single photograph of a baby girl in a white crib.
On the back someone had written: ANNA - 8 MONTHS.
"Who is Anna?"
Ryan sat down.
"My sister."
I stared at him.
In seven years together, Ryan had never told me he had a sister.
"She died when I was seven."
"How?"
He swallowed.
"They said SIDS."
From the staircase, Linda's voice cut through the room.
"Put that back."
We both turned.
May you like
She was standing halfway down the stairs.
And in her hand was a second key to the drawer.
