“What?”
“Crystal had a baby. You didn’t know? She didn’t tell you?”
My mom didn't know that Crystal and I hadn't spoken since she decided to move back to Missouri. She had more of a say in my relationship with my birth mother as a child. She made sure I never forgot to send Crystal a Mother's Day or birthday card. Mom would make the long drives to whatever facility or halfway house Crystal was staying in so I could visit. Once I turned eighteen, she backed off and let me manage my relationship with my birth mother on my own even when I could see the strain not interfering put on her.
“No, she didn’t tell me.”
"Well, you're his next of kin. So, you need to go to Missouri, take care of your mother's affairs, and decide what you want to do about the baby."
"You're my mother," I whispered, still trying to wrap my brain around this overload of information. Crystal was gone. She was really gone. I went months or years without seeing or speaking to her, but in the back of my mind, I knew she was out there somewhere living and breathing. I spent years holding out the foolish hope that she'd show up on my doorstep one day and tell me she'd changed her mind and chosen me after all. I would show her the apartment I had kept just for her and spend the rest of my life taking care of her like she tried to do for me. Now that would never happen because she was gone. And I had another brother. She'd had a baby. Is that why her letters stopped? Had she replaced me?
Mom sighed, gripped my hands, ignored my statement about her being my mother, and said, “You need to go to Missouri as soon as possible. I’ve already rescheduled my appointments. I can come with you if you need me to.”
I squeezed her hands and nodded. I needed her. I never imagined having to ever go back to that place, much less to identify Crystal’s body and claim the baby brother that I never knew existed. I didn’t want to do it alone.
"I've already talked to Bryce. You can leave work early today, and he knows you'll be taking some time off."
“I can’t…I…”
"Yes, you can, and you will. You need time to process this, and you have a lot of decisions to make."
I nodded.
Dad chartered a private jet.Kimberly pulled some strings to get us a deluxe cabin in a luxury resort called Welles Estates, right outside of Branson, that would provide a car and driver during our stay, which I hoped wouldn't be a long one.
After a restless night of sleep, we walked into the Taney County coroner’s office.
"Hi, I'm Cole Simmons. I'm supposed to be meeting Detective Richard Tan."
“Okay, please, have a seat. He’ll be right with you.” The thin, pale woman at the receptionist’s desk motioned to a row of chairs and picked up the phone on her desk.
I took a seat next to Mom. She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. The place was bare, sterile with hard plastic chairs and harsh fluorescent lights. In the corner, a flat-screen TV played the local news. The air was heavy with the smell of disinfectant. Crystal always smelled like shampoo and perfume. The aroma hung around her like a cloud. It was so strange imagining her in a place like this.
“Mr. Simmons, you can follow me,” she called. Mom and I stood. “Ma’am, if you’ll just wait, I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“No, she’s with me. This is my mother.”
She made no attempt to hide her confusion. Mom stepped forward, smiled, and extended her hand.
“Dr. Beverly Simmons. My husband and I adopted Cole as a child.”
The receptionist shook Mom’s hand, looked between my mother and me, then pasted on a cordial smile.
“I see. Well, my apologies for the confusion. If you’ll both follow me.”
We followed her into a small conference room where we were met by two men: a tall man of East Asian descent in a suit and a shorter gray-haired white man in a lab coat.
“Can I offer you anything to drink?” he asked. “Coffee, tea? We have a vending machine down the hall if you’d like a can of pop?”
I shook my head.
“No, thank you,” Mom responded.
"Thank you, Denise." The detective nodded at the receptionist, and she backed out of the room. The door closed with a small click.
Detective Tan was a stern-looking man with a hard, angular face, short black hair and calculating and assessing dark eyes that seemed to be sizing me up. I'd seen this look in detectives before, but having it directed at me was unnerving. He cleared his throat before speaking.
"Five days ago, we were called to the scene of a single-vehicle collision. The lone occupant of the vehicle, Amy Smith, was pronounced deceased at the scene."
