I had no reply.
After a while, he sank onto the piano bench.
“Was Jonathan my dad too?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked down at his hands. “Would that make Harrison our uncle?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s weird.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. It came out shaky, almost painful.
Ethan looked up, and then he laughed too. For five seconds, we were ridiculous together in the middle of impossible news, and those five seconds saved me.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I hesitated.
Ethan’s laughter died. “Answer it.”
I put it on speaker.
“Claire Parker?” a man asked.
His voice was older, smooth, carefully pleasant.
“Yes.”
“This is Peter Langford.”
My skin prickled.
Ethan sat straighter.
“I understand Harrison Cole has made contact with you,” Langford said.
I looked toward the rain-streaked window.
“How did you get this number?”
“That isn’t important right now.”
“It is to me.”
A pause.
Then a soft sigh. “Claire, you are in the middle of something you do not understand. Harrison Cole is not telling you everything.”
“And you are?”
“I knew your mother well.”
At that, my throat tightened.
“Then you know why I have questions.”
“Yes,” he said. “And I can answer them. But not over the phone.”