PART 2
“We’ve been looking for you for years.”
For a moment, I simply stared through the narrow opening between the curtain and the door.
The man on my porch did not look threatening.
That almost made him more frightening.
He was perhaps fifty, with neatly combed gray hair and a dark suit that looked too expensive for our street. He held a thick envelope beneath one arm. The black SUV behind him idled quietly beside our old mailbox.
Ellie appeared behind me in pink pajamas covered with little yellow stars.
“Grandma?”
I turned immediately.
“Go back to the kitchen, sweetheart.”
“But who is it?”
“Someone looking for directions.”
The man heard me.
His expression softened.
“I can come back later.”
I looked at him again through the glass.
“You said you’ve been looking for me.”
“Yes.”
“Who is we?”
He hesitated.
“The Bennett family.”
My hand tightened around the doorknob.
Bennett.
The name meant nothing to me.
At least, I thought it meant nothing.
“Do I know you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then why would your family be looking for me?”
He lifted the envelope slightly.
“That takes some explaining.”
I did not unlock the door.
Seventy years teaches you a few things.
One is that politeness is not more important than caution.
“If you know who I am,” I said, “tell me my name.”
“Margaret Hale.”
My stomach tightened.
“And your granddaughter is Eleanor Hale. She goes by Ellie.”
I stepped backward from the door.
He immediately raised one hand.
“I understand why that sounds alarming.”
“You think?”
“Yes.”
“Who gave you our address?”
“The woman whose ring your granddaughter returned.”
The grocery store.
Mascara running down her face.
One shoe untied.
Her hands shaking around that diamond ring.
“You know her?”
“She’s my sister.”
I glanced toward the kitchen.
Ellie was pretending not to listen.
Badly.
“What’s your name?”
“Thomas Bennett.”
“And your sister?”
“Rebecca.”
I remembered the woman had never given us her name.
“What does any of this have to do with me?”
Thomas looked toward the envelope.
“May I show you something?”
“No.”
He nodded.
A reasonable response.
“I can leave it on the porch.”
“You could also mail it.”
“I could.”
“Then why are you here at seven fifteen in the morning?”
Something like embarrassment crossed his face.
“Because my sister called me from the grocery store parking lot yesterday and said a little girl named Ellie had returned the ring.”
