"Babe…" Irene called from the table. She glanced over at him. "You will give yourself a headache. I can actually see the smoke coming out of your ears." She set a place mat down.
Evans forced a smile, but it wouldn't reach his eyes. "It's just…" He rubbed his temple. "All this time. Mary was here. She had a daughter." Saying it aloud made the possibility sound both smaller and more terrifying — suddenly very real, no longer the neat little file he could shove into a drawer.
Irene crossed the room and placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling the tension coil there. "Have you seen her?" she asked, quietly.
"No." Evans answered after a breath. "Mike says she isn't living with Ivy. I asked him to keep a tab on her; he thinks she'll lead us to her mother." He hated the careful phrasing—keep a tab—because it made the whole business sound like a game of surveillance rather than a reckoning with the past.
He pressed his thumb down on the rim of the glass.
