Page 89 of Find Me in California

“Anyway, at lunch last month she told him her year was almost up and she was convinced she wouldn’t be around much longer. She told him about Aubrey and he was furious. He drove for hours afterward and then went for a walk. He fell and hit his head, broke his leg real bad. A neighbor found him, thank God, but he’s been dealing with some memory loss and he’s still in a brace.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“He’s much better now. The memory loss was more severe right after the accident, but it’s slowly returning. He’s been staying here with me while he recovers, which is why Lenore Pullen couldn’t get a hold of him. He lost his phone and we never got around to having it replaced.”

Matt nods at everything she says, listening carefully. It’s all so much. “Nothing about this bothers you, about me? My mom?” Siobhan speaks so matter-of-factly about their relations. He’s having a hard time grasping she’s accepting him without question.

She shifts her weight onto her hip and folds her arms. “I was angry when he first told me. He cheated on our mom. But after talking it out with my siblings, we agreed it wasn’t worth getting upset over. The affair happened over fifty years ago. That man was not the man Dad is today. He’s not the man who raised us. My parents had a good marriage, but it wasn’t perfect. What marriage is? For all we know, Mom was unfaithful too. We can’t blame your mom, or you. But we can choose to embrace you if you’ll have us. There are a lot of us.”

“Like how many?” he chokes out.

“I have three kids. My oldest just had a son. My brothers each have two kids, all in college right now. And my sister, she’s the oldest. She has five kids and six grandkids. So yeah, a lot. Christmas is chaos.”

Matt blows out a long stream of air, processing it all. He went from having no family aside from Dave and Dave’s sister, who he suspects invites him over on the holidays because she feels sorry for him, to having more extended family than he could ever fathom. Arms crossed, he tucks his hands under his biceps.

Siobhan laughs lightly and pats his shoulder. “Like I said, we’re a lot to handle. But you needn’t worry. You’ll get used to us. Oh my, look at your face. I’m scaring you.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” Matt agrees. His heart is racing, and his palms are clammy again.

She laughs. “My dad is in the den. He’s watchingFamily Feudreruns. Follow me.”

Siobhan takes him down a wide hallway plastered with framed photos. Sensing excitement, Vinnie leaps off the couch and trots behind. Matt’s gaze skims over the wall collage of school photos and family reunions. There are so many. At the third door on the left, Siobhan announces him.

“Dad, look who’s here. You remember Matt?” She crosses the room and grabs a remote atop an ottoman, leaving Matt in the doorway. She turns off the TV and opens the blinds to a window that faces the street.

Opposite the TV are a floor-to-ceiling bookcase and a small sofa. But seated in an armchair in the corner, a braced leg propped atop a pillow on the ottoman, is an elderly man. He stares back at Matt with wide, faded brown eyes. Despite the twelve-plus years that have passed since he last saw Adam, Matt still recognizes the man who greeted him at the Burbank airport. And now that he knows this man is his mom’s biological father, his mind fills in the blanks. Aubrey was built like Adam, and she’d moved like him. But Matt hadn’t looked close enough. She had Elizabeth’s coloring, and he’d been told his grandfather was Matthew Holloway.

Adam pushes against the chair arms until he’s sitting more upright and leaning slightly forward as if he wants to get out of the chair. “Young Matt?”

At the sound of Adam’s voice, Matt is immediately thrown back to his childhood. There’s Adam throwing the baseball with him in Elizabeth’s backyard. Adam picking him up from practices and staying to watch games when he dropped him off. Adam in the kitchen washing dishes while he helped Matt with his homework. When his grandmother could hardly stand to be in the same room as him, Adam had stepped in. He didn’t replace his parents, but he tried to be the next best thing to the extent his position as a household employee allowed. And Matt had left without saying goodbye to him. Clouded with anger and guilt and so focused on ditching Elizabeth as soon as he came of age, Matt took off and never looked back.

“You’re here,” Adam says, astounded.

“Hello, Adam.” Matt shoves his hands into his pockets and moves into the room. He looks down at the gray wool socks covering Adam’s feet and the exoskeleton leg brace that spans from his heel to upper thigh. “How are you doing?”

Adam snorts. “I’ve had better days. Ready to get back on my feet, that’s for sure. Sit, sit. Shiv.” He gestures at the messy stack of newspapers and books on the couch. “Clear a space for him, dear.”

Siobhan tosses the remote on the ottoman and scoops up the newspapers and books. She sets them on a desk. “I’ll leave you two to chat.Holler if you need anything.” She smiles at Matt and leaves the room, Vinnie’s nails click-clacking on the plank flooring as he follows her through the house.

Matt sits on the couch, angling toward Adam as if he’s a guest on a talk show.

“I’m too old to put anything off, so we might as well face the elephant in the room. I didn’t know you were my grandson. I had no idea, Matt. None at all. If I had ...” Adam shakes his head, mouth pursed. “I never would have let you stay in that house.”

Matt leans his weight on his thighs and loosens his breath, rocked by Adam’s conviction. “But your wife.”

“Oh, she would have given me hell. We would have gotten through it. We’d been in a bit of a rough patch when Liza and I—well, my marriage was touch and go there for a while.”

“You had no idea about my mom? You couldn’t tell she was yours?”

He looks down at his lap for a moment. “I had my suspicions. I can admit that now. But I was also in denial. Aubrey looked so much like her mother, and I wanted to believe she was Matty’s, that Liza wouldn’t outright lie to me about it, that I convinced myself I saw a resemblance to him in her.” Adam makes eye contact. “Why not tell me she was mine, that’s what I want to know. And why tell me at all? She kept her secret for so dang long. I’ll never know, though.” He strokes a palm over his thinning hair. “I was furious when she told me. I left in a fit.”

Matt looks at his clasped hands. “I think I might know.”

“You do?”

“She left me a letter.”

“Oh? What did she say?”

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