My Husband Is Dead Or Is He? novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Her Other Son

Orin's POV

I put on yesterday's jeans and went down the stairs two at a time.

Marlo was already at the front door in my shirt, with her hair loose and her chin up.

"You don't have to go out there," she said.

"Yes, I do."

"They'll tear you apart."

"They'll do it either way. I'd rather they heard my name first."

She looked at me for a moment.

Then she took my scarred hand in hers, and opened the door.

The cold hit us on the porch.

There were two vans on the lawn and a woman with a camera, and a reporter from the Duluth paper with a notebook.

Behind them stood a dozen neighbors, and I saw Skye in her scrubs at the back, shaking her head.

Bernadette had her microphone in one hand and a lab sheet in the other.

"...a cruel and calculated fraud," she was saying. "I buried my son's memory this week, and this man has used it to move into a young widow's house."

She turned and saw us.

She didn't miss a beat.

"There he is," she said. "The man who stole my son's name."

Cameras swung toward the steps.

I walked down them, slowly, with Marlo beside me.

I stopped on the frozen grass ten feet from my mother.

"I never stole it," I said. "It wasn't mine to take."

"You see?" said Bernadette. "He admits it."

"My name is Orin Lindmark."

The lawn went quiet.

The reporter stopped writing.

"My brother was Hamish Lindmark," I said. "He was my twin. He died three years ago on the dry dock, and my mother has kept him alive on paper ever since."

"This is absurd," said Bernadette. "I have one son."

"You had two."

"I had one, and he is in a box on my mantel."

"You had two," I said. "You told me at nineteen that I was dead to this family. Say it again, on camera. Say you don't have a second son."

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