Chapter 2: The Name on the Gold
Michael stared at the engraving.
The letters were worn but unmistakable.
FOR MY SON, MICHAEL, WHEN HE RETURNS.
For several seconds, he couldn't move.
Curtis leaned across the counter.
“Michael? You all right?””
Michael tried to answer, but the words caught in his throat. His thumb moved slowly over the engraved name, tracing each letter with the careful attention of someone touching an object that might disappear.
Walter watched him.
“Why are you holding that medal like you know it?””
Michael raised his eyes.
“My name is Michael.””
Walter blinked.
“Lots of men are named Michael.””
“Michael Reed.””
The old man's face tightened.
“That doesn't tell me anything.””
Michael's jaw flexed. He looked down at the photograph again, then turned it around.
On the back, in faded handwriting, were three words.
Michael. My boy.
Walter made a sound that barely qualified as a breath.
He stepped closer to the counter.
“Let me see that.””
Michael hesitated.
“Please,” Walter said.
“I've earned the right to look.””
The words struck harder than Walter intended. Michael's grip loosened, and he slid the photograph across the glass.
Walter picked it up with both hands.
His fingertips brushed the image of the young soldier.
For a moment, he wasn't looking at a photograph. He was looking at a face he'd carried through decades of sleepless nights, a face that had grown older only in his imagination.
He touched the scar in the picture.
“That was from a truck accident,” Walter whispered.
“He was nineteen. He said the scar made him look dangerous.””
Michael's eyes widened.
“What did you just say?””
Walter swallowed.
“He laughed about it. Said girls would finally stop asking whether he was old enough to buy a drink.””
Michael gripped the counter.
“I remember a story like that.””
Curtis looked from one man to the other.
“Hold on. Are you saying this is your son?””
Walter didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Instead, he turned the photograph over again and stared at the handwriting.
“Who told you that you were adopted?”” Walter asked.
“My adoptive parents.””
“Did they know your birth parents?””
Michael's expression hardened.
“They told me my biological family was gone.””
“Gone where?””
“They wouldn't say.””
Walter lowered the photograph.
“Did they tell you your father was dead?””
Michael's silence lasted too long.
Then he nodded.
Walter shut his eyes.
For thirty-eight years, he'd imagined every possible explanation for his son's disappearance. He'd pictured a hospital room, a military transport, an unfamiliar city, a man who had forgotten his family.
He had never imagined standing three feet away from his son while that son believed him dead.
“I was never dead,” Walter whispered.
Michael looked at him sharply.
“Then where were you?””
Walter's shoulders dropped.
“I came home from deployment. The house was empty. Your room was empty. Your mother was gone, and nobody could tell me where you were.””
“Your wife?”” Michael asked.
Walter nodded.
“Your mother, Denise.””
Michael flinched at the name.
“I was told my birth mother died when I was young.””
Walter's expression changed.
“Denise died?””
“No. That's what I was told about my parents. Both of them.””
Walter stared at him.
“Who told you that?””
“Evelyn and Thomas Reed. They raised me.””
“Were they your relatives?””
“I don't know. They said they'd taken me in after a family tragedy. When I asked questions, they said I was too young to understand.””
Walter slowly lowered himself onto the stool beside the counter.
His knees had begun to shake.
Curtis hurried around the counter and steadied him.
“Sit down, Walter. Take a breath.””
Walter barely heard him.
Michael stood opposite him, the medal resting between them.
“Why would somebody give me a photograph of a soldier they claimed was dead?”” Michael asked.
“Why keep it if they wanted me to forget him?””
Walter looked at the photograph again.
“Maybe they didn't want you to forget.””
“Then why lie?””
The question hung between them.
Walter had no answer.
Outside the front windows, cars moved through the afternoon traffic. Inside, the bright sunlight illuminated the fine lines around Michael's eyes and the moisture collecting beneath Walter's.
Curtis placed a bottle of water on the counter.
“Both of you need to slow down,” he said.
“A photograph and a medal don't prove everything.””
Michael nodded stiffly.
“I know.””
But he kept staring at Walter.
The shape of the old man's nose. The slight crease between his eyebrows. The way his left hand curled when he was frightened.
Michael had seen those things before.
Not in another person.
In his own reflection.
He pulled out his wallet and removed a folded piece of paper.
“This was with the photograph when I was eighteen,” he said.
Walter unfolded it.
The paper contained a short handwritten message.
Your father cannot be allowed to find you.
Walter read it once.
Then again.
His fingers tightened around the paper.
“Who wrote this?””
“I don't know. It was placed inside an envelope with no return address.””
“When did you receive it?””
“On my eighteenth birthday.””
Walter looked up.
“Did you ever see the envelope?””
“No. My adoptive father took it away after I showed it to him.””
“And what did he say?””
Michael's face went cold.
“He said the past was dangerous and I should stop digging.””
Walter slowly folded the note.
For the first time since Michael had entered the shop, the old veteran's trembling hands became still.
Someone had known where his son was.
Someone had known Walter might come looking.
And someone had warned Michael that his father must never find him.
Michael leaned forward.
“Mr. Hayes, I need you to tell me everything you remember about the day I disappeared.””
Walter opened his mouth.
But before he could speak, Michael's phone vibrated on the counter.
The screen lit up with an incoming call.
*EVELYN REED.*
Michael stared at the name.
Then he looked at Walter.
“She hasn't called me in eleven years,” he whispered.
Curtis glanced at the phone.
“Are you going to answer?””
Michael reached for it.
The call stopped.
A message appeared immediately afterward.
Michael, if you're with Walter Hayes, leave that shop now. Do not let him tell you what happened to your mother.
Michael's face went rigid.
Walter saw the message.
And for the first time, fear replaced the confusion in his eyes.
“Michael,” he whispered, “whatever she told you about Denise…”
He stopped when another message appeared.
This one contained a photograph.
It showed a younger Walter standing outside a hospital, holding a newborn baby.
May you like
On the back of the original photograph, visible in the image, was a date.
The same date Michael had been told his mother died.
