Chapter 17: The Same Photograph

Imogen's POV

Cordelia stayed on one knee in front of my son, with her hand on his hair.

I did not like it.

"Thank you for finding him," I said, and I crossed the office and lifted Rory out of her reach.

"Of course." She stood, brushing her skirt. "He's a beauty. He must have been so much work, alone."

"He was."

"I'll leave you two to talk."

She smiled at us both, and she went out, and she shut the door softly behind her.

Rory squirmed in my arms.

"Mama, who is that tall man?"

He was looking at Lachlan, with the whole of his round gray stare.

Lachlan crouched slowly until his face was level with my son's.

His hands were not steady.

"Hello," he said. "I'm Lachlan."

Rory studied him for a long moment.

Then he dug into his coat pocket and pulled out the folded receipt.

He held up the drawing of the tall man with no mouth.

"I drew you," he said. "I didn't know what you say."

Lachlan took the paper in both hands.

He did not unfold it.

I saw his throat move.

"Rory," I said. "Go with Ansel's mother, please. She's right outside the door."

I opened the door, and the older woman was there with a cookie, and I handed my son across.

When it closed again I stood with my back to it.

Lachlan had not stood up.

He was still on one knee, with a child's drawing in his fingers.

"He drew me," he said.

"He draws you every week. I have a picture of you in a drawer, and he found it when he was two."

He looked up at me.

For the first time in three years, he looked like the man I had married, before I knew what that man would do.

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