“I need a moving date, Daniel. Not another conversation about a moving date.”
My mother had hooked her tape measure under the spare bedroom windowsill. She pulled it across the wall where I kept my desk, then looked at me as if the desk had already become a problem.
“I said we could discuss it this weekend.”
“It is the weekend.”
My phone lit up in my hand. The alumni volunteer had replied.
For three weeks I had been waiting for something better than another dead link. Now there was an attachment, a newly digitized obituary, and a short message saying it connected Clara’s childhood surname to her brother, Owen. Below that were current contact details.
This may be the brother you were looking for. His number is below.
I read the number twice without opening the scan.
“Who is it?” Mom asked.
“Someone found Owen. Clara’s brother.”
When she let the tape retract, it snapped against the case.
“You ought to leave the past alone.”
At thirty-seven, I knew how this sounded. A man still looking for his girlfriend from when he was seventeen. Clara’s family had moved twenty years earlier, and our relationship had ended in the mess of that leaving. I had searched in bursts, stopped for months, sometimes years, then tried a new directory or an old school contact.
I wanted a conversation. I knew perfectly well she might not want one. I wasn’t entitled to whatever life she had made, but I wanted the chance to ask.
“I’m only going to call her brother,” I said.
Mom folded the tape into her handbag. “Before you get distracted, can we settle this room?”
Her tenancy ended next month. I had offered the spare room provisionally, before either of us had discussed what living together would mean. She had an affordable senior flat reserved as an alternative, but she preferred my apartment. So far, she had neither a moving date nor my key.
“Not right now.”
She looked back at the wall. I took my phone into the kitchen and closed the door.
Owen answered on the fifth ring. I gave my name and mentioned the alumni volunteer.
“Daniel?” he said. “From school?”
“Yes. I knew Clara. We were together before you moved.”
He went quiet long enough that I checked the screen to see whether the call had dropped.
“I’ve been trying to find her,” I said. “Not constantly. I don’t mean that. Just now and then.”
“The surname would have made that difficult,” he said. “She started using our mother’s name after we moved.”
I leaned against the counter. Such a small explanation. Years of searching the wrong name, and here was a simple reason for it.
“Could you pass her my number?”
“Daniel. Clara died.”
I looked at the closed kitchen door.
“No,” I said, before I could decide what I meant by it.
“It was a road accident. Eighteen years ago.”
I set my free hand flat on the counter. There was a wet patch beside the sink, and I kept my hand in it.
“Are you sure you have the right Daniel?”
He said my old street name. Then he described the house, including the narrow side gate Clara used because our front doorbell never worked.
“Eighteen years?” I asked.
“Yes.”
She would have been nineteen. I had been searching for a woman growing older somewhere, perhaps with children, perhaps with no interest in remembering me. There had been no older Clara.
“I’m sorry,” Owen said. “I thought you must know. Your mother came to the funeral.”
I lifted my hand from the counter.
“My mother?”
“Ruth. Yes.”
“She’s here.”
He didn’t answer.
“I need to ask her something,” I said. “Can I call you again?”
“Of course.”
Mom was in the spare room, pressing the end of the tape against my desk. When I appeared in the doorway, she straightened.
“Clara’s dead.”
She looked at my phone, then at my face.
“What?”
“Owen says she died eighteen years ago. He says you were at the funeral.”
“That isn’t true.”
It came quickly enough that I wanted to believe her. I wanted to apologize for frightening her and call Owen back to sort out his mistake.
“Which part?”
“I didn’t know she’d died, Daniel. How could I have gone to her funeral?”
“He remembered you. He said your name.”
“It was eighteen years ago. He lost his sister. People get things mixed up.”
She put the tape away again. I watched her push it down beside her purse.
