Chapter 6 - The Account in Vermont
The payment was for forty-eight thousand dollars.
Not a fortune by Manhattan business standards.
But far too much to ignore.
The statement listed an intermediary account and a transaction reference marked Consulting Retainer.
"How did my mother get this?" I asked.
Ruth adjusted her glasses.
"An old supplier sent her a group of reconciliation records when he was winding down his business. One statement included this payment. She asked me to investigate."
"And what did you find?"
"The receiving company was called Northline Instruments."
I stared at her.
"The repair shop."
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"Because I only learned yesterday that the man in Lena's photograph might be your father. Until then, the payment seemed like a possible connection to those old disputed invoices."
Maya studied the statement.
"We need to be careful. A payment to that company doesn't prove it went to Martin personally."
"Then we ask him."
Ruth looked at me.
"Emma—"
"No. I've spent seventeen years visiting an empty grave. I'm not spending another seventeen pretending this photograph doesn't exist."
Maya folded her hands.
"I understand. But you're also facing a shareholder vote in two days. We need you here for the emergency court filing."
"Then I'll come back."
"Vermont isn't around the corner."
"I can drive there and back."
Maya considered it.
Finally, she said, "Give us your Portland records before you go. And please take someone with you."
I called Aunt Janine.
She answered from Oregon while making breakfast.
When I told her about the photograph, she dropped something.
I heard it strike the kitchen floor.
"Emma, say that again."
"Someone found a man in Vermont who looks exactly like Dad."
Silence.
Then Janine said, "Your mother told me she never found his body."
"You knew?"
"I knew there wasn't a body. She told me the investigators believed he'd been trapped in the fire."
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
Janine sounded exhausted.
"At first, because you were a child. Later, because every year it became harder to correct what you'd grown up believing."
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I asked about Portland.
"June fourteenth. Can you prove I was with you?"
"Of course. We went to the botanical garden that morning and had lunch with my neighbor."
"The document says I signed something in New York that day."
"What document?"
"Something Nathan is using to take my shares."
Janine's tone hardened.
"I have photographs. And I'll find the receipts."
"Thank you."
"Emma?"
"Yes?"
"If that's your father, don't let anybody tell you what you have to feel about him."
I looked down at the photograph.
"I don't know what I'll feel."
"Neither do I."
By evening, Maya had prepared the first emergency filings.
A process server was trying to locate Nora Price.
Claire Bennett had requested the original proxy for examination.
And I had found the old certificate photograph from Nathan's store opening.
It wasn't enough for a final conclusion.
But it was a beginning.
I rented a car and asked Ana to come with me.
She agreed before I'd finished explaining.
We left Manhattan shortly after six.
For the first hour, neither of us spoke much.
Then Ana said, "Your mother used to tell me your father was the most gifted repairman she'd ever met."
I watched the highway lights slide across the windshield.
"She didn't talk about him much at home."
"She loved him."
"That doesn't mean he was good to her."
"No."
Ana adjusted the air vent.
"It doesn't."
We drove north through the dark.
Near midnight, we checked into a roadside hotel outside Brattleboro.
I barely slept.
At seven the next morning, Ruth sent me the address of Northline Instruments.
The shop occupied a narrow building between a hardware store and an empty café.
A faded wooden sign hung above the door.
Through the front window, I saw shelves filled with clock parts, precision tools, and metal boxes.
Then a man stepped into view.
Gray hair.
Bent shoulders.
Green jacket.
He placed something on a workbench and reached for a magnifying lamp.
My breath caught.
Ana touched my arm.
"Emma?"
I couldn't answer.
The man turned.
For a moment, his face was reflected in the glass.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
My father.
Alive.
I opened the door.
A bell rang overhead.
He looked up.
"Can I help you?"
His voice was rougher than I remembered.
But I knew it.
I'd heard it in dreams.
I'd heard it in old home videos.
I had spent seventeen years wishing I could hear it again.
I stepped closer.
"Martin Vale?"
The screwdriver slipped from his hand.
It clattered against the workbench.
He stared at me.
Then his eyes filled with tears.
"Emma?"
I stood in front of him, shaking.
He took one step toward me.
I stepped back.
"Don't."
He stopped immediately.
I looked at the man who had let me bury an empty coffin.
And asked the question I'd carried all the way from New York.
"Did you know I thought you were dead?"
His face crumpled.
"Yes."
That single word hurt more than anything else he could have said.
May you like
Because it meant he had known.
And he had chosen not to come home.
