Chapter 11: The Other Son

Chase turned in his chair and saw his brother.

For a second he only looked tired.

Then he laughed.

"Look who flew in. The painter. Did she promise you the company too?"

"She hasn't promised me anything," Ellis said. "She never has."

He set his suitcase down by the door.

He looked around the long walnut table.

At the board. At the coffee running down the window. At Chase with the resolution crushed in his fist.

Then he looked at Holly, at the far end, with her sketchbook in her lap.

"You're the one from the storm," he said.

Holly's chin came up. "How do you know about the storm?"

"Everybody in the building's talking about it. The man at the desk downstairs told me before he told me where the elevator was."

Chase got up. He walked past his brother without touching him.

At the door he stopped.

"Enjoy it," he said to Ellis. "She'll do to you what she did to me. She always does."

Then he was gone.

The board left in twos and threes, quietly.

My late husband's brother stopped and put a hand on Ellis's shoulder on the way out.

"Good to see you, son."

Ellis nodded once. He didn't say anything.

The drive to Lake Forest took fifty minutes.

Ellis sat in front with the driver. Holly and I sat in back.

Nobody spoke.

At the house, the housekeeper opened the door, and when she saw who it was she put both hands over her mouth.

"Mr. Ellis."

"Hi," he said, and his voice went soft for the first time. "You still make the lemon cake?"

"I'll make it tonight."

She hugged him. He let her.

He didn't hug me.

He carried his own suitcase up to his old room at the end of the hall.

The file told me it was exactly the way he'd left it four years ago.

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