Chapter 5 - THE HOUSE WITH THE BLUE DOOR
I stared at the child’s drawing until the crayon colors blurred.
Leo Reed.
Vanessa had a six-year-old son. My mother had kept his artwork locked away with her most prized possessions. Why?
I packed the drawing into my purse, thanked the bank manager, and practically ran to my car.
I drove straight to the Northwest Side, toward my mother’s old neighborhood. When she passed away, Christopher had insisted on handling the estate. He told me he’d rented the modest brick house out to a lovely young couple to cover the property taxes. I had been too drowned in grief to check on it.
As I pulled onto her familiar street, my chest tightened.
The house was there. The old oak tree in the front yard was still standing.
But the front door, which had been white my entire life, was now painted a bright, vibrant blue.
Just like the crayon drawing.
I parked down the street and watched. There was a silver SUV in the driveway. The same car I had seen Vanessa driving out of the foundation’s parking lot weeks ago.
She lived here. My husband had moved his mistress into my dead mother’s house.
Bile rose in my throat. I wanted to march up to the door and break the windows. I wanted to scream until my lungs gave out. But rage wouldn’t save my son or my mother’s legacy. I needed proof. I needed answers.
Suddenly, the blue door opened.
Vanessa stepped out onto the porch. She was wearing sweatpants and a bulky sweater, looking nothing like the glamorous woman at the gala.
Behind her, a little boy ran out. He had curly brown hair and was clutching a toy airplane.
He looked about six years old.
And when he turned his face toward the sunlight, my heart completely stopped.
He didn’t look like Vanessa.
He had Christopher’s jawline. Christopher’s exact crooked smile. Christopher’s deep green eyes.
The timeline hit me like a freight train. Six years ago, Christopher had taken a "sabbatical" to London to set up an international branch of the foundation. A branch that mysteriously failed and closed down within a year.
He hadn’t just met Vanessa six months ago. He had fathered a child with her.
Tears spilled down my cheeks, hot and bitter. My whole marriage, my whole life, was a perfectly constructed lie.
I reached for my phone to take a picture of them.
As I pulled it out of my purse, the rosary I had taken from Christopher’s coat pocket spilled onto the passenger seat.
It landed next to the old Polaroid photo of Vanessa and my mother.
I picked up the photo again. I looked closer at the teenage Vanessa sitting next to my mom at the piano.
I hadn’t noticed it last night in the dim coat room. But now, in the bright morning sun, I saw it clearly.
Around teenage Vanessa’s neck, dangling over her shirt, was a silver locket.
May you like
The exact same silver locket that my mother had claimed was a family heirloom. The one she had given to me on my wedding day, telling me it had belonged to her grandmother.
Why was Vanessa wearing my family’s heirloom twenty years ago?
