The knocking. It all started at 2:47 AM. Even for me, that was early.

Because I’d been staring at the clock since midnight. One photograph. Sitting on my nightstand like a loaded pistol, ready to go off at any time. And with the knocking? I wondered if Gracie would wake up. The knocking continued, and Gracie stirred next to me.

“Paul,” she whispered. “Someone’s at the door.” Her sleep mask still covered her eyes, but she was pushing me to go check.

This time was the third knock. Urgent, but quiet. It’s the kind of knock you make when you don’t want to wake your neighbors. As close together as the houses were, it was a wonder our nosy neighbor wasn’t poking her head out the door, spying without revealing herself. It was incredibly annoying. Gracie didn’t seem to mind.

Like the good husband that I am, I got up, pulled on my robe, and snatched the baseball bat from our closet. We didn’t play softball anymore, yet we kept the bat. Now Gracie was up, following me to the front door, hand squeezing mine tightly.

The fourth knock. More desperate this time. Was there panic in that last knock? I didn’t care. It was early, and I was a bit annoyed. I wanted sleep, and now? That was highly unlikely. Through the peephole, I saw her for the second time. It was the woman. The one gave me the photograph at Dan’s. Unlike when I saw her earlier, I almost didn’t recognize her. Her face was swollen, blood staining the collar of her jacket. Nervous, she glanced behind her. 

“Please,” she hissed, loud enough for me and Gracie to hear her through the door. “I know you’re in there, Paul. Please. You have to let me in. They’re coming.” Then she repeated, “Please.” It was almost a cry.

Before I knew what happened, Gracie unlocked the deadbolt, the door lock, and the chain. Why we had a chain on the door, I’ll never know. It was Gracie’s idea. Something about triple safe. I figured the deadbolt was good enough. “Hurry. Get in here. Before anyone sees,” Gracie hissed, pulling her in by her jacket. The poor woman lost her balance. Stumbling into the entryway, she slammed into the tile floor, almost knocking me down in the process. Gracie caught herself before she too hit the tile. The last time that happened, Gracie ended up with so many bruises it was a wonder that the police weren’t called to our house to ask if I had beaten her.

“Oh. I’m so sorry,” Gracie said, helping the stranger to her feet. “Are you alright?” In the light, we saw her face, her left eye almost swollen shut, the blood coming from her nose. Thankfully, the bleeding stopped, but the aftermath made it look like she was a featherweight boxer. Not that she was built for boxing. 

“My apologies, Gracie.” She looked back at me through her good eye. “Paul. We need to talk. There’s no time left. I have,” she glanced at her wrist, “roughly fourteen minutes before they find me. That is, unless you listen to me.”

“Of course, sweetheart. Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.” Gracie led our guest into the kitchen. “Where are you from? Paul said you gave him the picture.” Gracie pulled out a chair, and the young woman plopped down. She looked exhausted. On her wrist was what appeared to be a Casio calculator watch, one from the early 1980s. I thought it was familiar, but, like many kids in the 80s, calculator watches were the ‘it’ thing. Well, for the nerds and geeks, like me, they were. The cool kids had Swatches. Me? I was not cool.

“Do you still have the photograph I gave you?”

I nodded.

“Can I see it?” Gracie ran the kitchen sink until the water was steaming, tossing a dish towel into the hot water. “You still have it?” Dabbing at the dried blood, Gracie did her best to wash the young woman.

“Who are you and why did you bring us the photograph?”

“I didn’t bring you the picture,” she said, using the same tone a doctor would have if you were telling him WebMD diagnosed you with kidney stones. Dismissive without being rude. “I brought it to Paul. Gracie, you are important, but not like Paul. Please understand, I’m not trying to be rude.”

Gracie scrubbed harder. “Ooh. Sorry about that. Dried blood is tough to get off,” she grimaced, half holding back a smile.

“You’re fine,” she answered. I came back with the picture.

“I don’t recognize myself in this picture,” I said to her.

“It’s not you.” She bit her cheek. “Not exactly. It’s complicated.” Gracie scrubbed harder. “I’m Ruby. Gracie?” She looked at my wife and sighed. “Please go check the door. Someone is going to knock on it in a few seconds. And you? You have to be the one to answer it.” Gracie’s stare was ice cold, aimed at Ruby. Then the knock came. “Please, Gracie. I’m not trying to be rude. One day it’ll make sense.” Ruby sighed. “But it won’t be today.” The knocking continued.

“Paul, this isn’t you. It’s your grandfather.”

“It looks just like me.”

“You’ll have to trust me. It’s Jonathan. He’s alive.”

I shook my head. “That’s impossible. He’s been dead now for . . .”

“Over thirty years, according to the death certificate, yes. Which is why this,” she shook the picture, “is so critical. No one has photographs anymore. This is a rare antique, to say the least.”

I heard Gracie talking at the door.

“No, Myrna. The woman isn’t a stranger. She’s a . . .” she paused for a second, looking back toward the kitchen, “relative of Paul’s.”

“You know that it’s odd to have company this late.”

“She caught a late flight and arrived a few minutes ago. Her Uber dropped off at the wrong address, and she walked.”

“Walked? Walked from where?” Myrna did her best to look back toward the kitchen, but saw nothing.

“That’s what she told us. Look, Myrna, it’s late. I need to get back to bed. Our guest has been traveling all day, and I’m sure she’d like to sleep, too. Have a good night,” Gracie said, pushing Myrna out the door. She wasn’t rude about it. She’d been having interactions with Myrna for years now. It was the only way to stop the incessant interrogation. Once we had a conversation with our grandkids about her, and they said she reminded them of Delores Umbridge from the Harry Potter books. Actually, a cross between her Hagrid. Myrna wasn’t all that bright, but observant.

“I’ll let you know if I see anything else!” Myrna shouted through the shut door.

Ruby looked at her watch. “I have three minutes. When they come, and they will, don’t tell them anything. Act like you’ve never heard of me, you don’t know Jonathan is alive, and do not tell them about this.” Ruby pushed the photo back in my hand.

“Who did this to you?” I asked Ruby.

“I have to go. Paul.” She lingered on my name. Something about the way she said it. It wasn’t normal. It was more familiar. More intimate. Like she knew me. Before I knew what happened, she was running out the sliding glass door in the kitchen. The neighborhood dogs started barking, waking up the neighborhood. Gracie walked into the kitchen, the front door dead bolted and chained.

“Who is she?”

“I’m still not sure.”

“She looks like Dot.”

“My Aunt Dot? Now that’s really stretching.”

“Is it? Especially if your grandfather is still alive?” 

“I think we’ve had enough excitement this morning.”

A loud banging came from the front door. Loud enough to rattle Gracie’s numerous paintings hanging in the hallway between the front door and the kitchen. “Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan. We know you are inside. Answer the door. We have a warrant.”

Gracie mouthed warrant. I shrugged. Go open the door, she motioned, pushing me to the entryway. “Just a second!” I shouted. I still had the photograph in my hand, not realizing it was there. Gracie noticed it, snatched it from me, and stuck it in her robe pocket before I knew what happened.

“Mr. Sullivan?”

“Yes? Can I help you?” Outside the door stood eight big, brawny men, two in Kevlar and two wearing flat black baseball hats. No logos. Nothing identifying them as police officers. More like rent-a-cop or mercenary outfits. At least that’s the way the movies portrayed them.

“We’re looking for this woman.” The one knocking on the door, obviously the one in charge, held up his phone, showing me a beautiful picture of Ruby in a black evening gown. She looked like she was at a benefit, celebration, or fundraiser. “Have you seen her? We have reason to believe she’s very dangerous and may have contacted you.”

I pretended to squint at the phone. “I’m sorry, your image there? It’s a bit blurry. Give me a second, and I can go get my glasses,” I started to shuffle back into the house. When I want to, I can act and look a lot older than I am. “Hey, Gracie!” I shouted, knowing her hearing was perfect. “Gracie!”

“What do you want?” she shouted back. This was an act we perfected years ago, when salespeople came door to door, doing their best to sell us solar panels, supplemental insurance, or soap. “Bring me my glasses, please.”

“Why do you want glass fleas? Who’s at the door?”

“Police.”

“Police? Why are they talking to you? You haven’t been anywhere today.”

“They want my help.”

“Ha! They don’t need your help.”

“Will you just get my glasses!”

“Your glass fleas? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And just like clockwork, the head goon tapped me on the shoulder, “Mr. Sullivan?”

“She’ll figure it out. Just give me a minute.”

“Never mind, sir.”

“Oh, well, I love to help. Are you sure you don’t want me to . . .”

“No. Thanks.” He handed me a business card. Did anyone still use business cards anymore, I wondered. “Agent Johnson.”

“If you see her, give that number,” he pointed to it, because I squinted at it, “a call.”

And just like that, the men left.

Smiling, I looked at Gracie. “You were magnificent, my darling. As per usual.”

“Why, Mr. Sullivan, ever the charmer you are.” She pulled the photograph out. “I didn’t see it before, but this isn’t your grandfather, Paul. This is you. He looks like your doppleganger.”

Over the years, I’d been told I looked like a lot of different famous people. Some were your average runway models. Others were major stars, like Hugh Jackman, although Gracie says I looked more like George Clooney. At least I did once upon a time.

“Well, someone looking like me, but resembling my grandfather, is in a photograph more than thirty years ago. Standing outside a building that we recognize but don’t know, and is unidentified by our search engines. Yet, Ruby says the person in the photo? IT IS my grandfather.”

“You and I know that’s impossible,” Gracie put a kettle of water on the stove, pulling out two cups and a box of Earl Grey teabags. “He died long before this picture was taken. You personally saw the body. So did I.”   

“Be that as it may, is it possible? Could my grandfather be alive?”

“Better question, Paul. What if this person is impersonating your grandfather? What would he gain? New identity? There wasn’t much of his estate, and we collected his debts and his checking account. Nothing else in his name. What could be the goal of this man taking on his identity?” The tea kettle whistled. Gracie poured the steaming liquid into each cup and added one tea bag to both. “And what does Ruby get out of it?”

“Ruby’s family,” I said.

Gracie handed me my tea, a puzzled look crossing her face. “How’s that exactly?”

“Distant cousin. Family my family never talked about.”

“Then how did you know?”

“Mother had old photographs of her. She’s, maybe in her thirties? Early forties? The picture was taken in the late 2030’s.”

“You remember that, but you can’t remember where you took off your glasses?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes, yes.”

“What about that?” Gracie asked me about the business card I was fiddling with. I tapped it a few times on the tabletop. “Are you going to call him?”

“And tell him all that we know? We don’t know if Ruby was attacked by those goons or someone else. We don’t know where Ruby is. And we certainly don’t know anything about this man in the photograph, other than Ruby believes it to be my grandfather.” My tea was perfection, as per usual with Gracie. She’d been making it long enough to know how warm it needed to be before serving it. I took another sip.

“You should call him.”

“And say what exactly?”

“Get him talking to you. Maybe he’ll tell you something.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know Paul. How about why that picture is so important. Or why Ruby is vital to them. That’s a start anyway.”

I took a deep breath. “I need a shower. I’m going to take a shower.” I walked out of the kitchen. “Thank you for the tea.”

“You’re welcome, dear.” She patted my shoulder. “Once you’re out, then we can talk through what you need to say on the phone.”

I nodded. My grandfather or a doppelganger impersonating him. All of this was too much for me to wrap my head around in less than three days. And my long lost cousin, Ruby. The family rarely talked about her, other than her father and mother were removed from contact with the rest of the family over a dispute of some kind. I’m not sure but both my parents were tight lipped about it. Was it money? Property? Too many questions that I needed to scrub from my head.

First things first. Shower. Then I could work out the rest.