PART 2 — The Birthmark
I turned away from Edmund and stared at the water.
Something about the way he was sitting bothered me.
Not the dirt.
Not the smell.
Not even the terrible condition of his clothes.
It was his silence.
He wasn’t embarrassed.
He wasn’t angry.
He was watching me through the mirror.
Almost as if he were trying to remember something.
I reached for the soap.
“Lift your arm,” I said.
He slowly raised it.
And then I saw it.
A small crescent-shaped birthmark just below his left shoulder.
My hand froze.
The sponge slipped from my fingers and landed in the water.
I couldn’t breathe.
That mark.
I had seen it before.
Once.
A lifetime ago.
I was ten years old when my younger brother disappeared.
His name was Elliot.
He was seven.
We had been at a crowded county fair with our parents.
One minute he was holding my hand.
The next, there was only an empty space beside me.
They searched for months.
Then years.
There were police reports.
Newspaper articles.
Missing-person posters.
People came to our house asking questions.
But Elliot never came home.
My mother eventually stopped speaking about him.
My father couldn’t even hear his name without leaving the room.
And I carried one memory with me for twenty-six years.
A crescent-shaped birthmark beneath Elliot’s left shoulder.
I stared at Edmund.
“No.”
He looked confused.
“Madam?”
I backed away from the bathtub.
“Where did you get that?”
He looked down at his shoulder.
“This?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve always had it.”
My heart began pounding.
I ran downstairs.
I tore open drawers.
Then another.
Finally, I found the old wooden box I’d kept since childhood.
Inside was a silver locket.
I hadn’t opened it in years.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was the only photograph I still had of Elliot.
Seven years old.
Smiling.
Wearing a striped shirt.
And showing the same crescent-shaped mark.
I ran back upstairs.
Edmund was still sitting in the tub.
I placed the photograph beside his shoulder.
He stared at it.
His expression changed.
His lips parted.
“I know that boy.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Where?”
He touched the photograph with trembling fingers.
I don’t know.”
Then he suddenly closed his eyes.
His breathing changed.
“I remember a woman.”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
I sank onto the floor.
“What do you remember?”
He pressed his fingers against his forehead.
“A red coat.”
My heart stopped.
My mother had owned a red wool coat.
“She was crying.”
I covered my mouth.
“What else?”
“A little girl.”
Me.
He looked at me.
“You were holding my hand.”
I started crying.
“Elliot?”
The old man stared at me.
The name seemed to strike something buried deep inside him.
He whispered it.
“Elliot.”
Then he looked at me again.
“Camille?”
I couldn’t move.
Nobody had called me by the childhood nickname he used that day at the fair.
Nobody.
Not even my husband.
I reached for him.
“Elliot?”
He began to cry.
And for the first time in twenty-six years, I heard my brother say:
“Cammy?”
I collapsed beside the bathtub.
We held onto each other like children.
But there was one question I couldn’t stop asking.
“How did you survive?”
His face became serious.
“I don’t remember everything.”
“Try.”
He closed his eyes.
“There was a man.”
“What man?”
“He said he was taking me somewhere safe.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Then he remembered something else.
A sound.
A logo.
A name.
He looked at me.
“Desmond.”
I froze.
“My husband?”
Elliot nodded slowly.
“I remember seeing that name.”
The room went silent.
Then my husband appeared in the doorway.
He had been standing there listening.
His face was completely pale.
Elliot looked at him.
And suddenly his expression changed.
“You.”
Desmond took one step backward.
Elliot pointed at him with a trembling hand.
“I remember you.”
I stood up.
“Desmond…”
He said nothing.
“Why does my brother remember you?”
Desmond’s eyes filled with tears.
Then he whispered:
“Because twenty-six years ago, I was the boy who found him.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
Desmond swallowed.
“I found Elliot after he disappeared.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked at Elliot.
“Because I didn’t know who he was.”
My voice broke.
“Then what happened?”
Desmond closed his eyes.
“I was a teenager. My father was working on a construction project nearby. I found a frightened little boy hiding inside an abandoned building.”
He looked at me.
“I tried to get him help.”
“Then?”
“My father came.”
Desmond’s face hardened.
“He told me to stay quiet.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer.
I stepped toward him.
“Why?”
Finally, he whispered:
“Because my father knew the family who had taken him.”
My blood ran cold.
“What family?”
Desmond looked at Elliot.
Then at me.
“The family that raised him for nearly twenty years.”
He took a shaky breath.
“And they’re still alive.”
I felt the room spinning.
My brother had been missing for twenty-six years.
And somehow, my husband had known a piece of the truth all along.
But before I could ask another question, Desmond’s phone began ringing.
He looked at the screen.
His face turned white.
He answered.
A man’s voice came through the speaker.
“Desmond, you need to leave that house immediately.”
Desmond said nothing.
The voice continued:
“If Camille finds out who took her brother, she won’t just lose her family again.”
A pause.
“She’ll lose her husband too.”