Secret Brother [Paperback]

The most unexpected Dollanganger story of them all, new from the author ofFlowers in the AtticandPetals on the Wind—both now major Lifetime movie events.

A young boy suffers amnesia from a trauma he suffered in what feels like must have been another life. He’s adopted into a wealthy family—but what will happen when he learns the truth about his past?Secret Brother

1



Just like when I heard the terrible news about our parents and the news years later about Grandma Arnold, I didn’t cry immediately. Something inside me wouldn’t let me understand what I was being told. The words kept floating away like tiny bubbles caught in a breeze and bursting before I could bring them back. Nevertheless, I knew. Deep inside, where I went to find love and hope, where my best dreams were on shelves waiting to be plucked like books and opened during sleep, a cold, dark realization boiled and threatened to spill over and into every part of me. I fought it back, but it was oozing in everywhere. Despite my effort, I knew I would be soaked in the dark sadness in moments and be unable to deny it.

We had retreated to the lobby in silence, Grandpa resting his large right hand over the back of my neck and me clutching his shirt with my left hand. We needed to keep touching each other, comforting each other.

We sat on a pair of chairs facing the exam rooms. He held my hand and stared ahead; his face had never been more stone-cold. Somehow all the noise around us seemed to disappear. It was as if I had lost my hearing. We were waiting now to learn about Myra. She was having an X-ray. Would she die, too? Suddenly, my grandfather looked up. The doctor he had first spoken to was oulc*