The Accusation and the Truth
I finally found my voice. “What are you doing here, Caleb?”
His eyes flicked toward me, heavy with years of silence. “It’s not what you think.”
I almost laughed. “What part? That you burned down Mom’s bakery? That you left her in ruins and disappeared?”
His voice was quiet, steady. “She didn’t lose everything. I took something with me that night. Something she wanted saved.”
He opened the duffel again and pulled out a fire-damaged metal box.
My heart clenched. Mom’s recipe box—the one she mourned for weeks, thinking it was gone forever.
“I was there when it burned,” he said. “But I didn’t start the fire.”
Gasps rippled. Nolan, my brother, spoke sharply: “You pleaded guilty. You admitted it.”
“I did. To protect someone else.” Caleb’s voice cracked. “Because Mom begged me to.”
