“Ryan sent me a picture from prom.”
Ryan nodded.
“Dad always asks for pictures.
I sent one of us standing together.”
Daniel continued.
“I recognized your mother immediately.
Then I looked at you.”
Iris’s eyes narrowed.
“And?”
“You have her smile.
But your eyes…”
His voice broke.
“They’re my mother’s eyes.”
Iris looked away.
Daniel said, “I knew the dates.
I knew how old you had to be.
I called Ryan because I was afraid of what it could mean.”
Ryan rubbed both palms over his face.
“I thought he was losing his mind.”
“So what did you do?” Iris asked.
“I asked your birthday.”
She stared at him.
Ryan continued.
“Then I showed Dad the picture your mom took before we left.
He asked me to zoom in on her face.”
I remembered taking that photograph.
I had been smiling behind the camera, unaware that an ordinary prom picture was about to dismantle eighteen years of silence.
Ryan said, “Dad told me not to touch you, not to scare you, and to bring you home.
He said he needed to talk to your mother immediately.”
Iris’s expression softened toward Ryan for the first time.
“That’s why you got weird after my message to Mom.”
He nodded.
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“You could have told me.”
“I wasn’t sure.”
She glanced at the envelope.
“But you were sure enough to threaten my mother.”
Ryan looked embarrassed.
“Yeah.”
A tiny sound escaped Iris that was almost a laugh.
It disappeared quickly.
“Five minutes?”
Ryan rubbed the back of his neck.
“It sounded better in my head.”
For the first time since they entered the house, the pressure in the room loosened by one degree.
Then Iris looked at Daniel again.
“Do you have a family?”
His eyes flicked toward Ryan.
“Ryan is my son.
His mother and I divorced when he was eleven.”
Iris absorbed that.
“So Ryan really is my brother?”
Daniel nodded carefully.
“If I’m your biological father, yes.”
“If?”
He looked toward me.
