Page 53 of Night of Shadows

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The line goes silent.

It stays silent for nine seconds. I count them. I count them because I am the kind of man who counts seconds when he’s waiting for a verdict from his older brother. I have not counted seconds waiting for Nico's response since I was sixteen years old and I had to tell him I had broken our father's rule about a thing I will not put on a page even now.

Then Nico says, "How long have you known?"

"Three days. I should have told you sooner."

Another silence. Shorter this time.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Lex."

It is the first contraction my brother has used in this conversation. It is also the first contraction I have heard him use to me in three years. The contraction is the signal. The contraction is the small wound that has just become audible.

"That hurts. We don't keep things from each other. We never have."

"I know."

"Why did you wait?"

I have rehearsed the answer to this question for three days. The rehearsal doesn’t help. I deliver the answer the way a man delivers a thing he’s held privately for too long — without ornament.

"Because I was afraid you would handle it before I could. Because the family architecture would absorb her, and Nora and they would not be ours anymore. Because I needed it to be mine first before it became Konstantinos."

Nico is quiet for a long time.

Then he says, "That's a real reason."

Beat.

"It's not a good enough reason. But it's a real one."

"I know."

"Bring them home, Lex. We'll talk when you're back. The whole family will need to know."

"I know."

"Stavros and Dimitri can wait until tomorrow. Mama needs to be told in person."

"I will tell her in person."

"All right."

Pause.

"Lex?"

"Yes."

"What is her name?"

My throat does something. It does what throats do when a man asks the right question at the right time. I close my eyes for one full second.

"Nora."

"Nora," Nico repeats. The word is careful in his mouth, the way you handle a piece of family China you have not been allowed to hold before. "How old?"

"Two years and eleven months. She turns three this month."

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