Chapter 6
“I saw the news,” she said without greeting.
Of course she had.
“Mom—”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then she said quietly, “I didn't know you were going to show them.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Neither did anyone else.”
“Iris.”
There was something in her voice.
A hesitation.
My mother had never been good at lying, but she had become surprisingly skilled at leaving things unsaid.
“What?”
“Come home tonight.”
“To your house?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Another pause.
“Because there's something I should have given you years ago.”
I stopped walking.
Daniel noticed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Not over the phone.”
“Mom.”
“Iris, please.”
An hour later, I was sitting at the kitchen table in the small brick house where I had grown up.
Nothing about it had changed much.
The same copper kettle rested on the stove.
The same faded photograph of my father hung beside the pantry.
My father, Dr. Thomas Bennett, had died six years earlier after a short illness.
He had been a physics professor with terrible handwriting and an almost unreasonable love of crossword puzzles.
Jason used to adore him.
Or I had believed he did.
Mom placed tea before me.
Then she disappeared upstairs.
When she returned, she carried a small wooden box.
My father's initials were carved into the lid.
T.B.
I stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was his.”
“I know.”
“He asked me to keep it.”
“For what?”
Mom sat opposite me.
“For you.”
The room seemed suddenly very quiet.
“Why didn't you give it to me?”
“Because he made me promise not to unless you ever needed to prove where ARIA came from.”
I couldn't understand.
“Dad knew?”
“He suspected.”
“Knew what?”
She slid the box toward me.
Inside were letters.
Dozens of them.
Some addressed to my father.
Some written by him.
At the bottom was a small black flash drive sealed in an evidence envelope from Westbridge University.
I looked at Mom.
“What is this?”
“Your father became worried about the patent filings after your accident. He told Jason that your name needed to be added before investors came in.”
My mouth went dry.
“What did Jason say?”
“That you weren't ready to deal with business matters.”
I closed my eyes.
It sounded exactly like him.
Not cruel.
Not obviously sinister.
Reasonable.
Protective.
Temporary.
That was how the important things had always been taken from me—not in one dramatic moment, but through a thousand decisions made supposedly on my behalf.