Chapter 2
I had not heard Evelyn’s name spoken inside my family in eighteen months.
Mark made sure of that.
According to him, Evelyn left after Noah’s first birthday.
No goodbye.
No explanation worth repeating.
She had been unhappy with the Bellacorte life.
Afraid of my family.
Afraid of Mark’s work.
She supposedly chose freedom over motherhood.
I despised her for it.
Quietly.
Completely.
Now her initials were burned into my birthday gift.
I held the plane beneath the firelight.
Same lettering.
I remembered it from Christmas ornaments Evelyn made when she first married Mark.
She always curved the middle line of her E too far inward.
Exactly like this.
“Where is the red cabin?”
Mark stood.
“Dad, enough.”
I looked at him.
He stopped.
Noah pointed toward the eastern windows.
“Trees.”
Useful when you are three.
Claudia folded her arms.
“There are twenty cabins around this mountain.”
“Then we have twenty places to visit.”
Her face changed.
Good.
I looked at Noah.
“Did the lady tell you her name?”
He nodded.
“What?”
“Miss Evie.”
My son flinched.
Not subtle.
I saw it.
So did everyone else.
Noah continued.
“She knows Mommy song.”
I became very still.
“What song?”
He hummed four notes.
That was enough.
Evelyn used to sing that melody while rocking him as an infant.
I heard it once when Noah had fever and Mark was away.
Nobody in this lodge should know it.
Nobody except family.
“Did Miss Evie say she was your mother?”
Noah shook his head.
“No.”
Interesting.
She had not confused him.
Had not claimed him.
She simply knew him.
Mark snapped:
“Someone is using him.”
I turned.
“You seem remarkably certain the woman doesn’t belong near him.”
“She left.”
“Then how do you know she’s the woman at the cabin?”
Silence.
There.
Mark had just identified someone he claimed did not exist in our lives.
I looked at Claudia.
Her hands had stopped shaking.
That worried me.
Fear had become calculation.
Then Noah whispered against my chest:
“Daddy said if I tell Grandpa, Miss Evie goes away forever.”
Every adult in the room heard it.
Mark looked at the floor.
May you like
And suddenly I understood that tonight’s snow was not punishment for a cheap gift.
It was punishment for a secret Noah had almost delivered directly into my hands.
