Instead, he had given me a name.
A history.
A mother.
A father.
A cousin who felt like a sister.
And a home waiting beneath years of silence.
At dinner, Anna raised her glass.
“To Carl,” she said.
“To the worst liar in the Bennett family,” Daniel added.
“The second worst,” Lucas corrected.
Everyone looked at Evelyn.
She pointed toward the empty chair at the head of the table.
“He always cheated at chess.”
I laughed.
“No, he didn’t.”
“He absolutely did,” Lucas said. “He moved pieces when people weren’t looking.”
That explained far too much.
We left the empty chair in place.
Not because Carl was missing from the family.
Because he was the reason it had returned.
Outside, wind moved softly through the protected forest. Somewhere across the lake, a bell rang from the village church.
I looked around the table at the family I had believed impossible.
