Chapter 1 - The Picture He Wouldn't Let Go
The silver picture frame struck the first stair before eight-year-old Isaiah Brooks did.
It cracked against the oak banister, bounced across the runner, and slid toward the foyer. Isaiah reached for it because the photograph inside showed his mother smiling with him on the last Christmas she had been alive. He did not see his stepmother's hand until it hit his shoulder.
His sock slipped on the polished edge. The boy tumbled down four carpeted steps, landed hard on his side, and curled around his aching wrist. His breath disappeared. Above him, Christmas lights blinked through the enormous Atlanta house as though nothing had happened.
"Mama," he whispered.
Celeste Brooks descended one stair at a time in a cream designer dress, her diamond earrings catching the chandelier light. She was beautiful in the precise, polished way the magazines liked. She glanced toward the security camera over the entryway. Its little red light was off.
"I told you not to bring that picture downstairs."
Isaiah reached for the frame. The glass had split across his mother's face.
"It's the only one I have."
"You have a whole house. Stop acting deprived."
"I just wanted her near the tree."
Celeste crouched and snatched the photograph away. Isaiah flinched before she touched him.
"Your father is away working so you can live like this," she said. "You will not ruin Christmas with that woman's face."
She tore the photograph out, folded it once, and held it over the fire burning in the foyer hearth.
"Please!" Isaiah tried to stand, but his wrist buckled beneath him. "Please don't burn my mama."
A housekeeper appeared at the hallway entrance. Her name was Odessa Price. She was sixty-three, Black, with tired knees and a uniform whose cuffs she had mended herself. She saw the boy on the floor and stopped.
"Mrs. Brooks. He needs help."
"He needs discipline. Go back to the kitchen."
Odessa stayed where she was. "His wrist is swelling."
Celeste's smile vanished. "Do you want to lose your job two days before Christmas?"
Odessa looked at Isaiah. His eyes were wet, but he was trying not to cry. She remembered her own grandson doing the same thing in a hospital waiting room. She stepped forward anyway.
Then the front doors opened.
Cold air moved through the foyer. Two security men entered, followed by a tall Black man in a charcoal overcoat, his beard threaded with silver. Malcolm Brooks had been away for nineteen days negotiating the sale of his construction company. He was supposed to return on Christmas Eve.
He looked at the boy curled beside the stairs, then at Celeste holding a folded photograph over the fire.
"Isaiah?"
The boy's face broke. "Daddy."
Malcolm crossed the room and dropped to his knees. "Don't move, son. Where does it hurt?"
Isaiah lifted his swollen wrist. Malcolm took one careful look and told his security chief, Andre, to call an ambulance. Then he saw the photograph in Celeste's hand.
"Give me that."
Celeste lowered it, instantly arranging her face into concern. "He had a tantrum. He ran on the stairs and fell. I was trying to calm him down."
Malcolm took the photograph without looking at her. He unfolded it. His first wife, Simone, smiled from a Christmas morning eight years earlier, with baby Isaiah bundled in red pajamas.
"She pushed me," Isaiah said.
Celeste inhaled sharply. "Malcolm, you know how he gets when he's upset."
"She pushed me," the boy repeated, quieter now. "And she was going to burn Mama."
Malcolm covered Isaiah with his coat. "I'm here. Nobody is touching you."
Celeste folded her arms. "You cannot seriously believe a child over your wife."
Malcolm finally looked up. "I believe his wrist."
Odessa stepped forward. "Sir, I saw him on the floor. I heard him ask her not to burn the picture."
"You saw nothing before that," Celeste snapped.
"That's true," Odessa said. "I won't pretend otherwise. But I saw enough to know he needs a doctor."
Malcolm nodded at her. "Thank you for telling me exactly what you saw."
A siren sounded beyond the gates. Isaiah clutched Malcolm's sleeve with his good hand.
"Daddy?"
"Yes?"
"Don't let her take Mama away again."
Malcolm went still. "Again?"
Isaiah nodded toward the enormous oil portrait of Celeste hanging above the foyer console. "She put Mama's letters behind that picture. She said you'd never find them."
Celeste's face lost its color.
Malcolm followed his son's gaze. The portrait was twelve feet high, installed while he had been traveling. He had never liked it, but until this moment he had never wondered why it was mounted on a wall that already held a family photograph.
Andre returned from the front door. "Paramedics are here."
Malcolm lifted Isaiah gently, supporting his injured arm. As they passed the portrait, he saw a narrow strip of blue paper protruding from the frame.
Simone had always written letters on blue stationery.
"Andre," Malcolm said, "don't let anyone touch that wall."
Celeste took one step toward the console.
May you like
"Not you," Malcolm said.
The boy buried his face in his father's coat. Behind them, the fire snapped and the blue paper stirred in the warm air.
