Chapter 6 - Bridgeport Dawn
"We're here," Claire said, immediately unbuckling her seatbelt. "Toby, wake up, sweetheart. We're home."
Toby rubbed his eyes, yawning widely. Sam helped him untangle from my massive cashmere coat, carefully folding it and leaving it on the leather seat. He was eight years old, but he moved with the caution of an adult who knew that touching expensive things led to trouble.
Leo didn't touch my suit jacket. He dropped it onto the floorboard as he slid out of the car.
"Leo," Claire scolded gently. "Pick that up and hand it to Mr. Whitmore."
Leo glared at the jacket, then at me. "He can pick it up himself. He has money."
"Leo!"
"It's fine, Claire," I said quickly, getting out into the cold night and opening the rear door wider. I reached down, picked up the jacket, and slung it over my arm. "He's right. It's fine."
The wind off Lake Michigan whipped down the narrow street, biting through my thin shirt. Toby shivered instantly, curling into Claire’s side.
"Thank you for the ride," Claire said stiffly, refusing to meet my eyes. "Goodnight, Ethan."
"I'm walking you to the door."
"No, you're not."
"Claire, it's two o'clock in the morning, the streetlight is out, and the front steps look like they're rotting," I said, my tone brooking no argument. "I am walking my sons to their door."
Before she could argue, I scooped Toby up into my arms.
He was remarkably light. Far too light for an eight-year-old boy. His small head instinctively rested against my shoulder, his cold nose pressing into my neck, before he realized who was holding him. He stiffened, looking at me with large, hesitant eyes.
"You're very tall," Toby murmured sleepily.
My heart shattered into a thousand pieces and reassembled itself in an instant. "I am, buddy. Hold on tight."
Claire let out a ragged breath, realizing she couldn't fight me on the sidewalk without waking the entire neighborhood. "First floor. Don't make any noise. Mrs. Higgins lives upstairs and she works the morning shift at the bakery."
We walked up the creaking wooden stairs. Claire fumbled through her worn canvas purse, pulling out a ring of keys with a cheap plastic cartoon keychain. She unlocked the heavy outer door, then two deadbolts on the inner door.
The apartment smelled of lemon pine cleaner, old wood, and the faint, sweet scent of cinnamon.
It was small. Painfully small.
The front room served as both a living room and an eating area. A faded sofa with a handmade quilt draped over the back sat opposite a tiny tube television. A small laminate dining table had four mismatched wooden chairs. In the corner, three small school backpacks hung from metal hooks, above three pairs of worn winter boots.
Yet, despite the poverty, it was immaculately clean. Books were neatly stacked on milk crates. Drawings of spaceships, dinosaurs, and chemical equations were taped proudly to the peeling wallpaper.
I carried Toby toward the only bedroom down the narrow hallway, but Claire quickly blocked the doorway.
"Give him to me," she whispered.
I looked past her shoulder. Inside the small room was a single bunk bed with a trundle mattress pulled out on the floor underneath. Three beds squeezed into a space meant for a closet.
I handed Toby over carefully. As his small weight left my arms, I felt an unbearable emptiness, as if someone had carved out a piece of my chest.
Claire laid him on the bottom bunk, gently slipping off his sneakers. Sam and Leo quietly walked past me into the room, kicking off their shoes and climbing into their respective beds without a word. They had done this routine a thousand times.
Leo pulled the thin blanket up to his chin, his dark eyes locked onto mine from across the room. He didn't look sleepy. He looked vigilant.
Claire pulled the bedroom door almost shut, leaving it cracked an inch, and turned back to face me in the dim hallway.
"You've seen it," she said, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. "We live in an old apartment. We don't have marble floors or private drivers. But we were peaceful, Ethan. We were finally okay. Why did you have to come back?"
"Because you have my children, Claire!" I choked out, keeping my voice to a harsh whisper. "Did you really think you could keep them a secret forever? Did you think I would never find out?"
"I prayed you wouldn't," she said coldly.
A ping sounded from my pocket.
I pulled out my phone. An email from Marcus Cole had just landed. Attached was a forty-page PDF document labeled *CONFIDENTIAL: MORGAN, CLAIRE.*
I tapped the screen, opening the first page.
The first document was a high-resolution scan of a birth certificate from Cook County Hospital, dated eight years and four months ago.
*Child 1: Leo James Morgan.*
*Child 2: Samuel Thomas Morgan.*
*Child 3: Tobias Ethan Morgan.*
*Mother: Claire Morgan.*
*Father: UNKNOWN.*
My eyes locked onto the third name.
*Tobias Ethan Morgan.*
May you like
I looked up from the glowing screen, my vision swimming with tears. "You named him after me."
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