Whatever existed at that address could not possibly matter more than the man dying in the room behind me.
Then I remembered the look in his eyes.
It had not been fear of dying.
It had been fear that I would never understand him.
I drove through nearly deserted streets with both hands locked around the steering wheel.
By the time I arrived, I had imagined almost every kind of betrayal.
A hidden wife.
A stranger waiting to tell me Frank had never actually wanted me.
An elderly woman answered the door.
Her hair was silver, her eyes a pale blue, and one hand immediately covered her mouth when she saw me.
She stared as if someone from the dead had appeared on her doorstep.
“Rosalie,” she whispered.
I gasped sharply enough to make her step backward.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Caroline.”
“How do you know me?”
She glanced past me toward the dark street.
“Frank called last month. He could barely speak. He said you might come one day.”
“Might?”
“He hoped he would find the courage to send you.”‘
She pulled the door open farther.
“I think you should come inside.”
Everything in me wanted to turn around and race back to the hospital.
But instead, I walked inside.
“Tell me what Frank lied about.”
Caroline remained quiet.
She crossed the kitchen and opened a drawer beside the stove.
Inside was an assortment of metal cookie cutters.
Hearts.
Flowers.
Animals.
Apples.
And one little star.
My breath caught.
It looked exactly like the star Frank had used every Sunday throughout my childhood.
“Where did you get that?”
Caroline picked it up gently.
“It belonged to Frank.”
“No. His is at my house.”
“He had two, dear,” she said.
Beneath the cutters was an old photograph.
Caroline lifted it out and passed it to me.
A little girl was standing beside a kitchen table, grinning over a plate piled with star-shaped apple pancakes.
She appeared to be around five.
Behind her stood Frank.
He was younger.
Thinner.
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