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“He remembered her name. The girl your son was seeing, I mean.”
“Anyway, her name was Daphne,
He couldn’t remember her last name, but he did say she went to his high school.”
“She said Daphne, didn’t she?”
Ethan
Sowell Bay High School, Class of 1989.
Cassmore, Daphne A. Pages 14, 63, and 148.
Cassmore. That surname had been a bugger in his brain since the very first time Cameron introduced himself. He knows Cassmore, but from where?
Ethan
The name Daphne Cassmore printed up in the corner atop the address block. The check was for some piddly amount. Six dollars and change.
It had been simple enough to link Daphne to Cameron.
the rumor that his mother may know something about the disappearance of a teenage boy thirty years ago.
Well enough to be certain she’s hunting down info on Daphne Cassmore right now.
He ought to tell her that Cameron is Daphne Cassmore’s son.
“She was seeing him,” Tova says quietly. “Your mother is the girl.”
She might have been with him that night.
his father was dead . . . had died in some accident when they were both eighteen . . . well, that would be a pretty solid reason to never have brought him into Cameron’s life.
Could that be possible? It would mean that Tova is his
Then he types out a whole explanation of the mess with his mother and Tova and Erik.
To veryy
The birth date on Cameron’s driver’s license is seared into her brain. He was born that following February. And his mother. Whoever she was. She was seeing Erik.
He said something about a ring and a photograph,
have lots of offices and properties, but this place was originally for Daphne. It’s the perfect spot for us to meet.”
“Well, sure. She’s my daughter.”
You’re her son. But what could I do, once she was—” “I’m your son, too!” Cameron’s voice cracks. Simon Brinks takes a step backward, recovers. “I’m sorry, Cameron. You’re not,” he says softly.
“Daphne was my best friend,” he says. “Look, I know how that sounds, but we really were just friends. Best friends.”
The cover reads SOWELL BAY HIGH SCHOOL, CLASS OF 1989.
“My initials. I’m Simon Orville Brinks.
SOB initials in his ring
“You don’t know EELS?” Brinks adds softly, “I never knew my father, either.”
EELS initials in ring Cameron has
“She loved you, Cameron, more than anything in the world. I know that much. Anything she did, it was from a place of love.”
“Did you know Marcellus was a rescue, too?” Tova lifts a brow, surprised. “I did not know that.” “He was in rough shape when we brought him in. Missing half an arm, his body all chewed up.
“If you ever change your mind, Tova, know that there is always a place for you here at Sowell Bay Aquarium.”
It is. EELS. Erik Ernest Lindgren Sullivan.
“Come on, my friend. Let’s take you home.”
“You led me to him. My grandson.”
she won’t be moving up to Charter Village. Tova will not be gone.
is poised to tell Avery about it, but hesitates. She ought not to meddle in his business. But, well . . . he’s family, and isn’t this what families do?
“She kept talking about a horrible night. An accident. A boom.” A boom.
The boom swings wildly. Smacks his head. Knocks him overboard.
“It mattered. I’m glad you saved her,” she says. And she means it.
At a bridge crossing the Columbia River, he reenters Washington state. Northbound, of course—he’s been going north. Going back to do things the right way.
When she opens the front door, she can’t believe her eyes. Cameron’s eyebrows are creased anxiously, like Erik’s when he was nervous about a school exam.
“His full name,” she says, “was Erik Ernest Lindgren Sullivan.”
He stands back and says with a dumbfounded grin, “I have a grandmother.” “Well, how about that?” She laughs, and it’s as if a valve inside her has been released. “I have a grandson.”
“Your great-grandfather built it.”
suppose we’re both homeless, then.” She gestures to the hallway. “Would you like to see where your father grew up?”
Who would do such a thing?” Cameron laughs. “Any teenage boy who ever lived?”
Inside is a painted wooden horse. “My Dala Horse.”
The sixth horse. Erik had fixed it.
“How did you get the class ring back?” She smiles. “Marcellus.”
Where I return now, to lie with the long-disintegrated bones of a beloved son.
Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.
Ethan claims his seat, arriving half an hour early for turkey supper. Sometimes it seems he spends every free minute in Tova’s condo.
