Chapter 3 - THE SWALLOWRuby stopped eating.
Damon sat across from her.
Harold moved away, giving them privacy without really giving them privacy.
“You gave this to Mom?”
Damon nodded.
“When?”
“Almost ten years ago.”
Ruby looked down at the necklace as if it had become a different object.
“My mom said it belonged to someone who loved her.”
Damon’s throat tightened.
“Did she?”
“She never said who.”
Ruby turned the swallow over.
On the back were three tiny letters worn nearly smooth.
E.F.V.
Ruby had always assumed the F stood for Fenwick.
Damon knew differently.
Elena Faith Voss.
Not legally.
Not ever.
But that was what he had jokingly called her the week he bought the necklace.
They had been twenty and nineteen.
Broke.
Reckless.
Certain love could survive anything.
Damon had paid forty dollars for the necklace at a small shop near Old Port.
The swallow represented return.
Elena loved that.
“Swallows always come home,” she had told him.
Then she had disappeared.
Ruby studied Damon.
“Were you my mom’s boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Three years.”
“Did you hurt her?”
The question landed hard.
“No.”
Ruby continued staring.
“Did she hurt you?”
Damon looked toward the window.
“I thought she did.”
That answer confused her.
Harold returned with a refill of coffee Damon had not requested.
“You should tell her carefully.”
Damon looked at him.
“Tell me what?” Ruby asked.
Nobody answered.
Ruby immediately pushed her plate away.
“I’m leaving.”
Damon blocked nothing.
He simply said, “I think somebody is looking for you.”
“My mom is looking for me.”
“I hope so.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
Ruby stood.
Damon added, “But if your mother left you with Mrs. Knox, she expected to come back.”
Ruby froze.
“How do you know Mrs. Knox?”
“I don’t.”
“I never told you her name.”
Damon realized Ruby was right.
Harold stepped in.
“You told me when I asked where your mother was.”
Ruby looked at him suspiciously.
She had not.
Harold had just made a mistake.
Damon noticed it too.
“Harold.”
The diner owner wiped his hands on his apron.
“Not here.”
Damon stood.
“Then where?”
Harold glanced toward the customers.
“My office.”
Ruby folded her arms.
“I’m coming.”
“No,” Damon said.
Ruby glared.
“You keep saying things about my mom and then telling me I can’t hear them.”
Damon had to admit she had a point.
The three went into Harold’s cramped office behind the kitchen.
Harold closed the door.
He unlocked the bottom drawer of an old filing cabinet.
Inside was a yellow envelope.
He removed a photograph.
Damon stared at it.
Elena.
She looked twenty-one.
Pregnant.
Very pregnant.
Standing outside Maple Corner Diner.
Beside her stood Harold.
And in the background was Maribel Knox.
Ruby stepped closer.
“That’s Mrs. Knox.”
Harold nodded.
“She and your mother knew each other long before you were born.”
Ruby looked at Damon.
He was visibly shaken.
“How pregnant was she?”
Harold answered quietly.
“Eight months.”
Damon calculated.
Elena disappeared from his life eight years and nine months before Ruby’s birthday.
He gripped the desk.
Ruby noticed.
“What?”
Damon shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“Stop saying nothing!”
The small room went silent.
Ruby’s voice trembled now.
“If everybody knows something about me, I should get to know too.”
Damon crouched.
“You’re right.”
He looked at the child carefully.
Then at the date printed on the photograph.
Eight years and seven months earlier.
The date made what he feared mathematically possible.
Ruby saw him looking.
“What is it?”
Damon could not say the words yet.
So Harold did.
“Your mother was already pregnant when she disappeared from Damon’s life.”
Ruby looked from Harold to Damon.
Then slowly touched the swallow necklace.
“Are you saying Damon might be my dad?”
May you like
No one answered.
That silence was answer enough.
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