Page 91 of The Cherry Blossom Boathouse

“About my family,” the man gasped—or more like, slurred. He was drunk. “I’ve been searching through old records, town documents. Anything that might tell me where I came from.”

“You couldn’t just ask someone?”

The stranger frowned. “Didn’t think people would be up for talkin’ to someone like me.”

Luke eyed his ragged clothes, the empty bottles. If this kid was a drinker, he wouldn’t be thinking straight either. He’d seen it with his dad, how the logical route wasn’t the one an alcoholic usually chose.

“You don’t get it, man; I’m trying to track down my birth mother,” the man continued.

Luke’s grip loosened slightly. “Birth mother?”

“Beth Flores. You know her?”

The name hit Luke like another wave, knocking the breath from his lungs so hard he couldn’t answer.

The man gestured to Luke’s arm, still on his throat. “If you let me go, I have a photo.”

Luke swallowed, stepping away, staring at the man in front of him.

The stranger reached into his jacket with shaking hands, pulling out something small and weathered. He handed it to Luke, who turned it over to see an image that made his world tilt sideways.

A woman in a hospital bed, young and tired-looking, holding a newborn baby. The woman’s face was gaunt, her blue eyes hollow with exhaustion, and something that looked like grief. But Luke would know that face anywhere.

His mother. Beth Flores Rhodes. Looking like she was holding the most precious thing in the world and the heaviest burden she’d ever carried all at the same time.

“That’s my mom. My-my name’s Finn.”

Luke looked at the young man—at Finn—and suddenly saw it clear as day. The eyes were different, brown instead of blue, but the shape was the same. The jawline, the way he held his shoulders when he was nervous. Like looking at a ghost of himself.

“When were you born?” Luke asked, though he already knew the answer was going to break something inside him.

“March sixteenth, two thousand and three.”

The year his mother left.

Luke closed his eyes, Abbey’s words from that afternoon echoing in his head. She was pregnant…She tried to start over with your dad, but she couldn’t live with herself.

“Hey.” Finn’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “You okay, man?”

Luke opened his eyes and looked at the young man. His brother. Because that was what Finn was, wasn’t it? The baby his mother had given up, the secret that had driven her away from everything she’d ever known.

“I know this woman,” Luke said, voice rough, hardly able to get the words out.

Finn’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah.” A pause as he looked at Finn dead in the eye. “She’s my mom, too.”

Finn’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re fucking kidding me?”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

“So that means…you’re my brother?” Luke nodded and Finn was quiet for a moment, tears filling his eyes. “Jesus. I have a brother,” he finally said, shaking his head in disbelief. He went to hug Luke but Luke stepped away, not quite ready for that, still trying to compute what was happening.

Finn smiled, pacing up and down. “I knew this was the right place, I knew it! I saw those boathouses,” he said, pointing across the lake, “all lined up like little houses on stilts in the background of the photo, a long way in the distance, through the window. Took me weeks of searching online, comparing photos, but I finally figured it out…” He paused and looked up at Luke. “Where is she? Your mom, I mean? My…mom?”

“Vancouver,” Luke said, voice rough. “Haven’t seen her in years. She walked out on us a few months after she had you…if you are the kid she had.”

“I have a family,” Finn said, still pacing, almost talking to himself. “Honestly thought I’d end up a bitter old man, dying alone because I was too scared to let anyone close.” He paused, peering at Luke. “Even had a fiancée last year, but I screwed that up, too. Convinced myself she’d leave eventually, like my dad did, like my birth mom did. So I made sure I made her leave, best to get in first.”