I picked up the photograph. Two older men on a porch swing, shoulders touching. One had Ben's jaw. The other held a paintbrush loosely in arthritic fingers.
Thomas wrote to me for years—he'd heard about Daniel's rescue and guessed I could be trusted with secrets. I've left his correspondence with my attorney, along with contact information for his and Edward's descendants in San Francisco. They've been waiting for someone from the valley to reach out. I think Ben should be the one.
My voice turned hoarse as I read the final paragraphs.
I'm giving you the house, the Steinway, and everything inside these walls, but those are only objects. What I'm really giving you is permission. Permission to stay. Permission to want something smaller and truer than the life you've been chasing. Permission to love that boy with the sawdust in his hair, if you're brave enough.
Ben choked up and sniffled.
Take care of the theater, my darling. It's been lonely without you, and it has so much more to give.
I had to stop. The following lines swam in front of my eyes.
"What is it?" Ben's voice was rough. "Alex, what does it say?"
I forced the words out.
Take care of Ben. That boy has been waiting for you longer than he knows.
The letter fell from my hands.
"She knew." The words scraped out of me. "She knew about everything. About the magic, about Thomas, and she knew I'd find you. She planned for me to find you."
Ben wrapped his arms around me from behind, pulling me back against his chest.
"Sixty-three years she kept that secret, and I didn't even know she had a brother. I just took her for granted, and now she's gone, and she left me instructions—"
My voice broke completely.
The sob that followed came from somewhere deep inside—a locked room I'd been boarding up since the phone call about her heart attack. Since the funeral I'd attended in dark glasses and a borrowed suit. Since I'd fled back to New York because grief was easier to outrun than to face.
I couldn't outrun it now. Not naked in her house, wrapped in a quilt she'd probably stitched herself, and held by the man she'd chosen for me.
"I've got you." Ben pressed his lips against my hair. "Let it come."
I cried the way I hadn't let myself cry since I was a child—ugly, gasping sobs that shook my entire body. Ben held on through it all.
"She never got to see me come home," I managed finally. "I waited too long."
"She knew." Ben's voice was fierce and tender at once. "She wrote that letter because she knew, Alex. Not hoped. Knew."
"But she's not here."
"No. And that's going to hurt for a long time. Maybe forever." He pressed his lips to my temple. "But you're here. You did exactly what she believed you'd do."
I pulled back enough to look at him. His eyes were wet too—crying for a woman he'd only known through margin notes, odd jobs, and theater donations.
"She told me to take care of you," I whispered.
"She knew me better than you think. She came to every show and told me exactly which joints were visible from her seat." A laugh escaped him. "She was terrifying. I adored her."
I kissed him—not with heat, with the desperate need to feel something alive against my mouth. He kissed me back the same way, soft and salt-flavored.
When we broke apart, I was still crying, but the sobs were gentler. A tide going out instead of crashing in.
"I'm not okay," I said.
"I know."
