Chapter 9 - Nora Answers Once.
The DNA comparison was expedited because of the active criminal investigation.
I gave my sample at the county lab on Thursday morning.
Vanessa gave hers too.
Anna's sample arrived by courier that afternoon.
The technician explained that sibling relationships require more interpretation than parent-child testing.
I nodded through every sentence.
I had become painfully respectful of procedures.
My parents had spent years manipulating paperwork.
I wanted the truth built on something they could not bend.
While we waited, life became strangely domestic.
Lily and Emma built a blanket fort in Julia's living room.
Marcus replaced the locks at my apartment, installed cameras, and packed enough clothes for us to stay away another week.
Vanessa spoke with her divorce attorney about revising Emma's childcare plan so my parents could never again be listed as emergency contacts.
I answered detectives' questions about people I had not thought about since childhood.
Every normal task existed beside something enormous.
At lunch on Friday, my phone rang from an unfamiliar Cedar Falls number.
I stared at it.
Nobody had told me Anna would call.
I almost let it go to voicemail.
Then I answered.
"Hello?"
Silence.
A woman's breathing.
My hand began to shake.
"Claire?"
The voice was unfamiliar.
Of course it was.
A two-year-old does not keep the same voice at twenty-six.
"Yes."
Another pause.
"This is Anna Avery."
I sat down on the kitchen floor because no chair was close enough.
"Hi."
It was the stupidest possible word.
It was the only one I had.
"My attorney said I didn't have to call you."
"You don't."
"I know."
Her voice was controlled but not cold.
"I wanted to hear you."
I pressed my fingers against my mouth.
"I'm glad you called."
"I don't know if I'm your sister."
"I know."
"The charm isn't proof."
"I know."
"And I loved my parents."
There was sudden steel in her voice.
"Jonathan and Miriam were my parents."
"I understand."
"Do you?"
The question was fair.
"I am trying to."
She breathed out.
"Detectives told me your parents may have lied to them too."
"They may have."
"Miriam kept a locked box of documents."
"What kind?"
"Letters from Evelyn Price."
I closed my eyes.
"Did she know you were Nora?"
"I don't know."
"Did your parents ever call you Nora?"
"No."
Her answer came quickly.
"I was Anna from my earliest memory."
That hurt, but not because she had done anything wrong.
"Do you remember anything from before the Averys?"
"A few things."
I stopped breathing.
"You don't have to tell me."
"I know."
She paused.
"I remember a yellow kitchen."
My parents' old kitchen had been yellow before the 2006 renovation.
"I remember a girl singing the same line over and over because I wouldn't sleep."
Tears filled my eyes.
I used to sing Nora one line from an old nursery rhyme because I only knew that line.
Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear.
I whispered it before I could stop myself.
"Round and round the garden."
The line went silent.
Then Anna inhaled sharply.
"How did you know that?"
I could not keep my voice steady.
"Because that was me."
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
I heard a sound on her end that might have been crying.
I was crying too.
"I called you Nori," I said.
Anna made another small sound.
"No one has ever called me that."
"I did."
"I don't remember."
"That's okay."
"I remember the feeling of someone pulling on my sock."
A laugh broke through my tears.
"You hated socks."
"Apparently I still do."
That tiny joke nearly destroyed me.
The conversation lasted only seven minutes.
Anna ended it before either of us could ask too much.
"I need time."
"Take all of it."
"If the test says we're related, I still need time."
"I know."
"Please don't come to Cedar Falls without asking."
"I won't."
Another pause.
"Claire?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry you thought I was dead."
I closed my eyes.
"I'm sorry they took your name."
The call ended.
I sat on the kitchen floor for a long time after that.
Marcus found me there.
One look at my face told him.
"Was it her?"
"Anna."
He sat beside me.
"What happened?"
I leaned my head against his shoulder.
"She remembers the song."
Marcus wrapped an arm around me and said nothing.
That was enough.
Later that afternoon, Lily crawled into my lap.
"Why are your eyes puffy?"
"I talked to someone important."
"Nora?"
I smiled through another wave of tears.
"Maybe."
Lily accepted that answer.
"Tell her I have her same bracelet."
I looked down at the replacement bracelet Marcus had bought her, identical except for the missing original star still held as evidence.
"I will."
At four, Detective Ortiz arrived with news that complicated everything again.
Forensic analysts had recovered deleted audio files from the hidden-room computer.
My father had apparently recorded certain Bright House meetings, probably because he distrusted everyone as much as they distrusted him.
One audio file was dated June 2002.
The month before Nora disappeared.
Ortiz could not play the full recording for us, but she described a conversation between Robert, Diane, and Evelyn Price.
My mother complained that Nora's crying had become "impossible."
Evelyn suggested temporary respite.
Robert asked whether the Averys were still interested in a younger child.
Diane said one sentence that stripped away the final comforting fantasy I had been holding.
"If they take her permanently, Claire and Vanessa can be told she died."
I stood in Julia's kitchen staring at Detective Ortiz.
"She planned it."
"The recording suggests the false death story was discussed before the placement."
"They didn't panic afterward."
"It does not appear so."
"They planned my grief."
No one answered.
My father then asked on the recording what the Averys were willing to contribute to Bright House.
Evelyn mentioned a range.
My mother asked whether it would cover their mortgage arrears.
There it was.
Not a tragic decision made by overwhelmed parents.
Not a desperate family crisis.
Money.
Control.
Convenience.
A child who cried too much.
Vanessa walked out of the room and slammed the bathroom door.
Marcus went after her.
I stayed with Ortiz.
"What happens now?"
"Prosecutors are reviewing additional charges."
"For Nora?"
"Potentially."
"For the other children?"
"The investigation is expanding."
I looked at the clock.
Three hours earlier, I had heard my sister's adult voice for the first time.
Now I had heard what our mother said while arranging to erase her.
At six twelve, the lab called Detective Ortiz.
The preliminary sibling analysis was complete.
She listened, asked two confirming questions, and ended the call.
Then she looked at me and Vanessa.
"The results strongly support that Anna Avery is your full biological sister."
Vanessa covered her face.
I stopped breathing.
Nora was alive.
But before relief could settle, Ortiz's phone rang again.
This time, her expression darkened.
Anna's attorney was calling.
Someone had been outside Anna's house.
Someone had left an envelope on her porch.
Inside was a recent photograph of Lily.
After the call, Anna sent one message through her attorney that I reread several times.
She asked us not to send childhood photographs until the DNA result was final.
She explained that she wanted evidence before nostalgia because she had spent her career watching adults influence children's memories without realizing they were doing it.
The request was so specifically her that I felt an unexpected surge of pride.
I told Ortiz we would follow it exactly.
Vanessa agreed, though she cried while putting the Christmas album back into its bag.
"I want to show her everything," she said.
"We will if she asks."
"What if she never asks?"
I looked at the photographs of three little girls who no longer existed in those forms.
"Then they stay ours."
That was painful, but it was clean.
May you like
My parents had spent years using information as leverage.
We would not turn memories into another kind of pressure just because our intentions felt kinder.
