Chapter 4 - What Abby Knew About the Smiling Flowers
Abby stood in the library doorway holding the brass key and whispered:
“I know where Mommy hid June’s other smiling flower.”
Nobody moved.
Not Marcus.
Not Caleb.
Not me.
The storm kept hitting the windows behind us, but the sound seemed farther away now.
I looked at the key in Abby’s hand.
“Where?”
She glanced toward Caleb again.
Her fear had returned.
Not the same fear Nora carried.
Abby’s was simpler.
More immediate.
The kind children felt when they had been given rules without understanding why breaking them might be dangerous.
Caleb took one slow step backward.
“It’s okay.”
Abby stared at him.
“You talked to the bad man.”
Caleb’s face tightened.
“I didn’t know he was bad.”
“Mommy cried.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
The words came out small.
But sharp.
Caleb stopped.
I crouched so Abby did not have to look up at me.
“Where’s Nora?”
“In the room.”
“Does she know you came downstairs?”
Abby shook her head.
“Why didn’t you tell her?”
“She says no too much.”
That almost made Marcus smile.
Almost.
I held out my hand.
Not for the key.
Just toward her.
“Show me.”
Abby looked down at the brass key.
“Mommy said only if you knew broken cookie.”
My chest tightened again.
“She told you that?”
“She told Nora.”
“And the smiling flower?”
Abby nodded.
“She said if I remembered June’s words, then you would remember too.”
“Remember what?”
Abby frowned.
“I don’t know.”
Caleb spoke quietly.
“Everett.”
I looked at him.
“If Elena prepared this before tonight, she expected something to happen.”
“I know.”
“She also expected Abby to remember something from a year ago.”
“I know.”
“That means Abby probably met June.”
The sentence hit harder spoken aloud.
I turned back to her.
“Abby, do you remember June?”
She looked confused.
“The smiling-flower girl?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then:
“Sometimes.”
I forgot to breathe.
Marcus moved closer.
I lifted one hand.
Not yet.
Not from all of us.
Just me.
“Where did you see her?”
Abby looked toward the fire.
“At the place with fish.”
“What place?”
“The wall had fish.”
St. Agnes.
The pediatric floor had an enormous ocean mural near the elevators.
Blue whales.
Orange fish.
A green sea turtle June had named Pickles.
“Was it a hospital?”
Abby nodded.
“I think.”
“How old were you?”
She held up four fingers.
Then looked at her hand.
“Maybe.”
A year ago, Abby would have been four.
“Was Nora with you?”
“Yes.”
“Was your mother?”
Another nod.
“What was June doing?”
Abby’s eyes shifted upward as though the memory lived somewhere near the ceiling.
“She was coloring.”
“What?”
“Flowers.”
My throat closed.
June had colored hundreds.
Sunflowers mostly.
Sometimes purple.
Sometimes blue because she said flowers should not have rules.
“Did you talk to her?”
Abby nodded.
“She gave me yellow.”
“What does that mean?”
“The crayon.”
Of course.
“What did you say?”
Abby shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she tell you about smiling flowers?”
“Yes.”
Nora’s voice came from the hallway.
“Abby.”
Every adult in the room turned.
Nora stood barefoot outside the library.
Her borrowed pajama pants were too long and pooled around her ankles.
Her face showed anger first.
Then fear.
“I told you to stay upstairs.”
Abby looked guilty.
“I had to show him.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
Nora crossed the room quickly.
She reached for the key.
Abby pulled her hand back.
“Nora.”
“Give it to me.”
“Mom said—”
“I know what Mom said.”
“Then why won’t you do it?”
Nora froze.
That question landed differently.
I stood.
“Do what?”
Neither answered.
“Nora.”
She stared at Abby.
Then whispered:
“Because Mom didn’t know what he was like.”
I knew she meant me.
“What am I like?”
Nora looked directly at me.
“Powerful.”
It did not sound like a compliment.
“And that scares you?”
“Mom said powerful people don’t always know what happens around them.”
Caleb lowered his gaze.
I felt the accusation anyway.
“Your mother wasn’t wrong.”
Nora seemed surprised.
I continued.
“But she still brought you here.”
“She didn’t want to.”
“Then why did she?”
Nora’s mouth tightened.
“Because she ran out of people she trusted.”
That hurt more than it should have.
Not because Elena did not trust me.
Because somehow, despite everything I owned, despite every locked door and hired guard, a sick woman with two children had reached the point where my house was her final option.
“Where does the key go?”
Nora folded her arms.
“Mom said we had to know it was really you.”
“You asked about the moon.”
“That was one question.”
“There are more?”
She nodded.
“How many?”
“Three.”
Marcus looked at me.
I almost laughed.
Elena had built a security protocol out of my dead daughter’s private memories.
“What’s the second?”
Nora hesitated.
Then:
“What did June say broccoli looked like?”
I knew immediately.
“Tiny trees that taste angry.”
Abby smiled.
A real smile.
For the first time that night.
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“Did she hate broccoli?”
“With impressive commitment.”
Nora did not smile.
“One more.”
“Ask.”
“What song did she make you sing wrong?”
That one hurt.
June loved an old lullaby Catherine used to sing.
After Catherine died, I could never remember the second verse.
June would correct me.
Then eventually she started insisting my wrong version was ours.
“She called it the Daddy verse.”
Nora watched my face.
“What was wrong with it?”
I swallowed.
“I changed ‘stars above’ to ‘lights above.’”
Nora exhaled.
The tension left her shoulders.
Not all of it.
Enough.
She looked at Abby.
“Give him the key.”
Abby placed it in my palm.
Small.
Cold.
Old-fashioned.
Not a house key.
Not modern.
Brass shaft.
Round bow.
A number stamped along one side.
214.
Marcus leaned closer.
“Locker?”
“Maybe.”
Caleb’s face changed.
“What?”
I looked at him.
“Two fourteen.”
He stared at the key.
“I know where that is.”
“Where?”
“St. Agnes.”
My pulse changed.
“Explain.”
“Staff storage level. Older section below pediatric oncology. They had numbered lockers for volunteers, contractors, rotating caregivers.”
“Elena had one?”
“She might have.”
“You don’t know?”
“I knew the corridor. Not individual assignments.”
Marcus pulled out his phone.
“I can call hospital security.”
“No.”
Both men looked at me.
“Why not?” Marcus asked.
“Because we don’t know who issued Elena’s credentials.”
“You think someone at the hospital is involved.”
“I think someone there already was.”
Caleb nodded.
“He’s right.”
Marcus looked at him.
“You don’t get a vote.”
Caleb accepted that without argument.
Nora spoke.
“Mom said not to call.”
I turned.
“Call who?”
“The hospital.”
There it was.
“What exactly did she say?”
Nora repeated it carefully.
“If we got to June’s daddy, we had to give him the key. But he couldn’t call St. Agnes first.”
“Why?”
“She said somebody would empty it.”
The library went silent.
Marcus swore under his breath.
“Locker 214.”
Nora nodded.
“So we go in person,” I said.
Marcus immediately shook his head.
“Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because there are two children upstairs, an unidentified woman somewhere in Baltimore, a mystery man looking for them, and a storm bad enough that half the roads are flooding.”
“I’m not waiting until morning if someone can empty that locker.”
“You’re not walking into a hospital basement at midnight without preparation either.”
“I own half the building next door.”
“That does not make hospital security yours.”
Caleb spoke.
“There’s another entrance.”
Marcus turned slowly.
“Of course there is.”
“Old loading corridor. Used to connect laundry services and maintenance storage.”
“Still active?”
“Probably not officially.”
“Can it reach locker 214?”
“Yes.”
Marcus stared at him.
“How do you know that?”
Caleb’s answer took too long.
“Because Elena used it.”
I looked at him.
“When?”
“The night she gave me something.”
“What?”
He exhaled.
“A flash drive.”
My patience broke.
“You have spent the last twenty minutes giving me information one inch at a time.”
“I was trying to determine what Elena wanted you to know.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I know.”
“Where is the drive?”
Caleb looked at the floor.
“I don’t have it.”
“Who does?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“St. Agnes.”
Marcus laughed once.
No humor.
“Please tell me you didn’t put it in locker 214.”
“No.”
“Then where?”
Caleb looked at me.
“Inside the old chapel organ.”
I stared.
The hospital chapel.
June had gone there twice.
Not because we were religious.
Because she liked the colored glass.
One afternoon she asked me why people whispered there.
I told her some people believed God listened better when rooms were quiet.
June had whispered into my hand instead.
She told me my hand was closer.
“When did Elena give it to you?”
“Four days before June died.”
“Before the garden footage?”
“Yes.”
“What was on it?”
“I never opened it.”
Marcus’s head snapped toward him.
“You expect us to believe that?”
“Elena told me if I opened it and something happened to her, I would become part of the problem.”
“You already are part of the problem.”
“I know.”
I walked toward the window.
Rain streaked the glass.
Outside, security lights reflected over the flooded lawn.
“Why didn’t you retrieve it later?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“After the funeral.”
“And?”
“The chapel organ had been removed.”
I turned.
“Removed where?”
“Storage.”
“Which storage?”
Caleb looked at the key in my hand.
“That’s what I never found out.”
Locker 214.
Maybe not a locker.
Maybe a storage room.
Maybe Elena knew where the organ had gone.
Maybe the brass key opened something else entirely.
Abby tugged Nora’s sleeve.
“Nora.”
“What?”
“You forgot the picture.”
Nora went still.
I looked between them.
“What picture?”
“No picture.”
Abby frowned.
“Yes.”
Nora’s face hardened.
“Abby.”
“Mom said show him after the questions.”
Every adult in the room focused on Nora.
She looked trapped.
Then angry.
“Mom told me not to show everything at once.”
“Why?”
“In case you were pretending.”
“Pretending to be myself?”
“In case somebody made you answer.”
I understood.
Elena had been afraid enough to assume I might be under surveillance.
Or coercion.
“What picture?”
Nora walked upstairs without answering.
I followed.
So did Marcus.
Caleb stayed in the library with Abby.
Nora entered the guest room and went directly to her wet coat.
She turned it inside out.
The inner lining had been hand-stitched near the hem.
She pulled one loose thread.
A narrow opening appeared.
From inside, she removed a photograph sealed in plastic.
She did not give it to me immediately.
“Mom cried when she put this in.”
I held out my hand.
Nora stared at it.
Then placed the photograph in my palm.
It showed June.
Not in the hospital garden.
Not at home.
June sat cross-legged on a pale blue rug with Abby beside her.
Nora was there too.
All three children held construction-paper sunflowers.
Behind them stood Elena.
Younger.
Healthier.
Smiling.
And on the wall behind Elena was a painted wooden sign.
HARBOR HOUSE FAMILY CENTER
I stared at it.
“What is Harbor House?”
Nora answered.
“Where we used to live.”
“With your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Why was June there?”
“I don’t know.”
I turned the photograph over.
Writing covered the back.
Not Elena’s.
June’s.
Her uneven block letters.
I recognized them instantly.
NORA HELPS ABBY.
ABBY LIKES MY FLOWERS.
And underneath, in another adult hand:
Everett must never know they met until the trust is secure.
Marcus read it over my shoulder.
“What trust?”
“I don’t know.”
But Caleb’s voice came from the doorway.
“I do.”
We turned.
He had followed us upstairs.
His face looked sick.
“What trust?” I demanded.
Caleb stared at the photograph.
“The Whitmore Foundation created one six weeks before June died.”
“I created dozens.”
“Not this one.”
“What was it for?”
Caleb swallowed.
“For two unnamed minor beneficiaries.”
My skin went cold.
“Who authorized it?”
“I only saw the paperwork once.”
“Who?”
He looked at Nora.
Then at Abby behind him.
“The signature was yours.”
I stepped closer.
“I never signed that.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because Elena showed me the original.”
“What original?”
Before he could answer, Marcus’s phone rang.
He checked the screen.
Unknown number.
We all froze.
He answered on speaker.
No one spoke at first.
Only breathing.
Then a woman’s voice.
Weak.
Terrified.
“Elena?”
Nora lunged toward the phone.
“Mom?”
A sharp sound came through the speaker.
Something metallic.
Then Elena whispered:
“Nora, do not go to St. Agnes.”
The line crackled.
I grabbed the phone.
“Elena, where are you?”
She began crying.
Not loudly.
Like someone trying not to be heard.
Then she said:
“Everett, the key isn’t for the hospital.”
I looked at the brass key in my hand.
“Then what does it open?”
Another sound came through the line.
A door.
Footsteps.
Elena’s breathing stopped.
May you like
Then a man’s voice spoke behind her.
“Tell him what June found.”
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