“So all these years I had a twin brother and never knew about him?” Jase stared at the old man as if he’d never really seen him before. His cell phone pinged, indicating he’d received a text message. He ignored it.

“That’s about the size of it.” Ed drew hard on his cigarette, lost in thought.

“So where is he? And where is Mom?”

“Don’t know about the boy. But Marian? She’s dead.” He slid a glance at his son, then continued to gaze through the branches of the trees to the street below. Cars and trucks rolled past and a kid crouching on a skateboard skimmed along the sidewalk. A normal afternoon, for some.

“You kept in touch with her?” Jase was astounded. He thought of the one picture he’d seen of her, the haunted woman getting married.

“Nah.” He shook his head. “She had a cousin, in Pocatello, Idaho. That cousin called me years ago and gave me the news. Marian, she got sick early, don’t know what it was. Ended up in a nursing home. Died there. Buried in that town’s cemetery or cremated, I don’t know and I don’t really care.”

Jase felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Though he’d expected the news. He’d even mollified himself as a child, believing that his mother had to be dead or else she would have returned or reached out to him in some way. Still, the realization that she was really dead came as a shock, as if some part of that little boy still held on to the hope that if she were still alive, he would see her again, feel her arms surround him, smell her perfume. Silly. Stupid. He thought he’d grown out of that fantasy, but hearing that she was actually gone, that he’d never look into her face if for no other reason than to ask, “Why? Why did you leave me?” hit him harder than he’d imagined.

He felt his jaw work and he cleared his throat. “I didn’t find any mention of her death certificate.”

“You were probably lookin’ in the wrong name.”

“I searched Marian Selby and Marian Bridges.”

His father slid him a glance. “Next time try Wilcox. Helen Marian Wilcox Selby Bridges and then whatever else she went by. Probably got hitched a few more times, for all I know, all I care. She was married a few months when I met her. Went by her middle name. Never liked Helen, she claimed. We got together and that first husband, he didn’t like it none, but gave her a quickie divorce and . . . oh, hell, you know the rest.”