I read David\u2019s name until it stopped resembling a name at all. The letters seemed to separate on the page, each one becoming nothing more than ink pressed into old paper. David Bennett. My brother. Six years older than I was. Dead at thirty-two after a motorcycle accident on a wet county road less than a year before Thomas proposed to me.<\/p>\n
Daniel was the first to speak. \u201cMom?\u201d<\/p>\n
I folded the page along an existing crease because I needed my hands to do something precise.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid was my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael looked at me carefully. He had probably expected shock, but there are different varieties of shock. Mine was not the dramatic kind that makes a person stumble backward. It was narrower, colder. A door inside my memory had opened onto a room that should not have existed.<\/p>\n
Samuel sat heavily on an old wooden chair.<\/p>\n
Daniel turned on him. \u201cYou knew her brother was involved?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor how long?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSince nineteen eighty-five.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel swore.<\/p>\n
I hardly heard him. I was thinking about David as he had been when I was twenty. He drove too fast, laughed too loudly, spent money before earning it, and could charm our mother into forgiving almost anything. He disappeared for days and came home carrying stories nobody could verify. He had been unreliable in a dozen ordinary ways, but I had loved him without reservation because older brothers inhabit the first architecture of childhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat exactly did Evelyn write?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
Michael handed me the rest of the statement.<\/p>\n
Evelyn described meeting David during the brief separation from Thomas. David had come to Bellweather with friends for a weekend motorcycle race at a private track outside town. Evelyn met him at a roadside tavern. She had been angry with Thomas, embarrassed by their arguments, and determined to prove to herself that she could leave him.<\/p>\n
She and David spent one night together.<\/p>\n
That was all.<\/p>\n
At least according to her.<\/p>\n
Weeks later, she reconciled with Thomas and told no one. By the time she realized she was pregnant, she convinced herself the timing favored Thomas. Then Samuel entered the story, creating a second possibility she could admit because admitting David would have introduced something far worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy worse?\u201d Daniel asked.<\/p>\n
Samuel looked at me.<\/p>\n
I understood before he said it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Thomas already knew my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel nodded.<\/p>\n
Thomas and I had not been dating in 1984. We had not even formally met. But Thomas\u2019s father, Henry, bought lumber and hardware from my father\u2019s business. David occasionally made deliveries. Thomas had encountered him several times.<\/p>\n
Michael said, \u201cMy mother wrote that Henry recognized David\u2019s name when she finally admitted it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen did she tell Henry?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter I was born.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel leaned forward, elbows on knees. \u201cHenry came to the hospital because Thomas was falling apart. Evelyn\u2019s mother was furious about the whole situation. Everybody was accusing everybody else. Evelyn finally told her mother there had been another man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd her mother told Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would Henry care?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel\u2019s face tightened. \u201cBecause he hated scandal more than he loved truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sounded plausible enough to be ugly.<\/p>\n
Henry Mercer had been a hard man. During the years I knew him, he measured people by punctuality, employment, church attendance, and whether their lawn looked respectable from the street. He had never disliked me, but I never confused approval with affection. Thomas spent much of his adulthood trying not to resemble him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did Henry do?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
Samuel answered. \u201cHe found David.\u201d<\/p>\n
The workshop went silent.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid knew about Michael?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually.\u201d<\/p>\n
My chair scraped as I stood.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel did not argue.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid would have told me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I was his sister.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel\u2019s voice remained quiet. \u201cMargaret, people don\u2019t necessarily confess the worst thing they\u2019ve done to the people they love most.\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost said Thomas had proved that.<\/p>\n
The sentence never left my mouth.<\/p>\n
Samuel explained that Henry contacted David privately. He told him Evelyn had given birth to a boy who might be his. David initially denied everything, then admitted he had slept with her. Henry arranged blood tests through a private physician he knew.<\/p>\n
Those tests were not definitive either.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about the later test Evelyn mentioned?\u201d Daniel asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat came afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel said Henry became obsessed with eliminating uncertainty. Samples had been retained during medical testing because Michael had health complications as an infant. Several years later, when early DNA profiling became commercially available in limited contexts, Henry quietly had additional testing arranged.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout Thomas?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout Evelyn?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel hesitated.<\/p>\n
Michael said, \u201cMy mother knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe agreed?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said Henry convinced her it was the only way to stop wondering.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the result showed David was your father.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The word entered the room softly.<\/p>\n
My nephew stood four feet away from me.<\/p>\n
I studied Michael\u2019s face again, but now resemblance became unbearable. The line of his jaw was not Thomas\u2019s. It was Bennett. My father had that same narrow chin. David too. Even the way Michael pressed his lips together while thinking reminded me suddenly of my mother.<\/p>\n
Daniel looked from Michael to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo Michael is your nephew.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd my cousin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Dad knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel shook his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him. \u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThomas suspected there was another man, but Henry refused to tell him who. Evelyn\u2019s mother kept David\u2019s identity out of it. Evelyn herself was ashamed and scared. Thomas spent years believing either he or I was Michael\u2019s father.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael said, \u201cMy mother wrote that she tried to tell Thomas once.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel\u2019s eyes dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNineteen ninety.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe sent a letter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThomas never received it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHenry intercepted it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel gave a disbelieving laugh. \u201cHow was his father intercepting mail when Dad was a grown man?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause some of it came through the shop. Thomas and Henry were still in business together then.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered that period. Mercer Woodcraft had begun as Henry\u2019s repair business before Thomas bought him out. Mail, invoices, customer deposits\u2014Henry handled most of the office work until retirement.<\/p>\n
Samuel continued. \u201cHenry believed that if Thomas learned David Bennett was the father, he\u2019d tell Margaret.\u201d<\/p>\n
My skin prickled.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knew about me?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy nineteen ninety, you and Thomas were married.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel said, \u201cSo Grandpa Henry knew Michael was Mom\u2019s nephew and still kept it secret.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel looked toward the photograph of Evelyn and Thomas.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause by then Daniel had been born.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sentence made no immediate sense.<\/p>\n
Then it did.<\/p>\n
Thomas had named our son Daniel Christopher before knowing Christopher was biologically David\u2019s child. Henry knew the names connected the families. Revealing Michael would expose Thomas\u2019s earlier relationship, Evelyn, the false death, the money, the altered records, and David\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n
Henry feared the scandal.<\/p>\n
But there was more.<\/p>\n
I could see it in Samuel\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat aren\u2019t you saying?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel rubbed both hands over his knees.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid was alive when Henry got the first meaningful test result.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe died in nineteen eighty-seven.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo he knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The floor seemed to fall several inches beneath me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did he do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel looked at Michael before answering.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came here once.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael\u2019s expression changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never told me that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel shook his head. \u201cYour mother asked me not to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were almost two.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared toward the blue house.<\/p>\n
David had come here.<\/p>\n
My brother had stood in this same property years before I knew Thomas owned it.<\/p>\n
Samuel told us David arrived angry and frightened. Henry had contacted him again, insisting the newer tests increased the likelihood that he was Michael\u2019s father. David wanted to see the child before deciding what to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he see him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael stepped closer. \u201cDid he hold me?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel swallowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was something devastating in the simplicity of that answer.<\/p>\n
Michael looked down at the floor.<\/p>\n
Samuel said David stayed less than an hour. Evelyn cried. David promised to return after speaking with his parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was going to tell us,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what he said.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought of my parents in 1987. My mother had been brittle for months after David died. My father had stopped discussing him except in practical terms\u2014insurance, motorcycle repairs, burial costs. Grief had turned our house into a place where everybody moved around the absence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis accident,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Samuel\u2019s face stiffened.<\/p>\n
Daniel immediately noticed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel stood.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n
My heartbeat grew louder.<\/p>\n
\u201cSamuel.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me reluctantly.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid died three days after visiting this house.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing hit like cold water.<\/p>\n
I knew the official story. David left a friend\u2019s home after midnight during heavy rain. His motorcycle crossed the center line on a curve and struck a tree. No other vehicle was recorded. He had alcohol in his system, though below the legal limit used at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think his death had something to do with this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why did you react?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Henry blamed himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPressuring him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael asked, \u201cPressuring David to stay away?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cHenry told him he would destroy your family if he exposed everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
I laughed once, quietly.<\/p>\n
\u201cDestroy us how?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe threatened to tell your father that David had gotten an engaged woman pregnant and abandoned her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father would have been furious. He would not have been destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHenry knew that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what else?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel did not answer.<\/p>\n
Daniel moved between us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did Henry have on David?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel looked at me.<\/p>\n
I knew that look now. It meant another secret had been preserved supposedly for my benefit.<\/p>\n
\u201cSay it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid owed money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was not unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot ordinary debt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo whom?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMen involved in illegal betting around the motorcycle circuit.\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
That did sound like David.<\/p>\n
Samuel continued reluctantly. \u201cHenry had helped him settle part of it earlier. Quietly. He threatened to tell your father everything if David came forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo David left.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen died three days later.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWas his accident really an accident?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel stood sharply. \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer frightened me more than a denial would have.<\/p>\n
Michael reopened Evelyn\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother never suggested someone killed him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Samuel said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut she wrote that Henry visited her after David died and said the problem was over.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
Samuel\u2019s face hardened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds worse than it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe meant David could no longer disrupt Thomas\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThomas\u2019s future with whom?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel looked at me.<\/p>\n
I understood.<\/p>\n
Henry had already noticed Thomas spending time at my father\u2019s hardware business.<\/p>\n
Thomas and I met properly in the spring of 1987, two months before David\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
The dates collided violently in my head.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re telling me Thomas knew my brother before he courted me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow well?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he know David might be Michael\u2019s father?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned toward Michael. \u201cEvelyn wrote Thomas didn\u2019t know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe believed he didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel said, \u201cHe didn\u2019t. Not then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen did he learn?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel\u2019s shoulders lowered.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel stared.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo years ago, Thomas found Henry\u2019s papers.\u201d<\/p>\n
I could not immediately process the phrase.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat papers?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOld business records. Henry kept a locked steel box in storage. Thomas finally opened it after clearing out a warehouse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd inside?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCorrespondence. Test results. Notes about David. A copy of Evelyn\u2019s letter from nineteen ninety.\u201d<\/p>\n
The secret had not been carried knowingly for forty-two years.<\/p>\n
It had changed shape.<\/p>\n
Thomas had lied about Evelyn, Michael, and the house for decades\u2014but he had only learned two years ago that Michael was David\u2019s biological son.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he still didn\u2019t tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
The part no explanation could soften.<\/p>\n
Two years.<\/p>\n
Seven hundred and thirty mornings.<\/p>\n
Seven hundred and thirty nights beside me.<\/p>\n
Thomas had known my dead brother left behind a son, and he said nothing.<\/p>\n
Daniel stared at Samuel. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel\u2019s eyes moved toward Thomas\u2019s letter on the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause by then Evelyn was ill, Michael refused contact, and Thomas convinced himself disclosure would only reopen graves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds exactly like him,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Everyone looked at me.<\/p>\n
I hated how well I understood it.<\/p>\n
Thomas could endure guilt if he believed suffering quietly protected somebody else. He had always mistaken endurance for virtue. If a roof leaked, he climbed up alone. If money was tight, he took extra work without mentioning it. If he was frightened before a medical test, he joked until the results came back.<\/p>\n
He would absolutely turn secrecy into sacrifice if it allowed him to believe he was carrying pain for others.<\/p>\n
Michael asked, \u201cThen why change his mind?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he saw Daniel with his children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel frowned.<\/p>\n
Samuel continued. \u201cLast Christmas, Thomas told me he watched your daughter ask Margaret about David because she\u2019d seen his photograph. Margaret told her what she remembered. Thomas realized your grandchildren were growing up inside a family history that was false.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered that evening.<\/p>\n
My granddaughter Lily had asked why Uncle David looked like Daniel. Thomas had been washing dishes nearby. He dropped a glass.<\/p>\n
We blamed wet hands.<\/p>\n
Samuel said, \u201cThat night Thomas told me he was done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDone with what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLetting dead people decide what living people were allowed to know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael sat on the edge of the workbench.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen he contacted me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at Michael.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid Thomas know you had Evelyn\u2019s statement?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. I told his lawyer only that I had documents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the night he died, he was coming here expecting to finally learn what his father hid from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then he planned to tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel nodded.<\/p>\n
I pressed my fingers to my mouth.<\/p>\n
That knowledge did not absolve Thomas.<\/p>\n
It made his death crueler.<\/p>\n
He had spent two years hesitating, then finally moved toward confession and died three hours too soon.<\/p>\n
Daniel paced to the doorway.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait.\u201d<\/p>\n
We all looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Dad only found out two years ago that David was Michael\u2019s father, why did he come here all those years? Why keep the house? Why send money?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause before that, Thomas believed Michael might be his.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when he learned Michael wasn\u2019t his, why keep paying?\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael spoke first.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe payments stopped eleven years ago when my father Robert died. After that I refused Thomas\u2019s money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel looked at Samuel.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Dad kept the house?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel\u2019s expression softened.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Evelyn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael lifted his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe never wanted it sold.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel walked to the workshop wall where the height marks ended.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause this was the last place all the versions of her life existed together. Thomas. Michael. Me. Even David, once.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked around at the room.<\/p>\n
Not a love nest.<\/p>\n
Not exactly a memorial.<\/p>\n
A container.<\/p>\n
A place where nobody had been able to throw away the consequences of what happened.<\/p>\n
Daniel opened another drawer beneath the workbench.<\/p>\n
Inside were several small notebooks.<\/p>\n
He pulled out the most recent one.<\/p>\n
Thomas\u2019s handwriting covered the pages.<\/p>\n
Dates.<\/p>\n
Addresses.<\/p>\n
Fragments of conversations.<\/p>\n
At the back, one sentence was underlined.<\/p>\n
Ask Margaret about David\u2019s accident before telling her anything.<\/p>\n
My skin went cold.<\/p>\n
Daniel held the notebook toward me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would Dad write that?\u201d<\/p>\n
I had no answer.<\/p>\n
Then Samuel sat down again.<\/p>\n
This time, he looked genuinely afraid.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Thomas found something else in Henry\u2019s box.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA receipt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor repairs to Henry Mercer\u2019s car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel frowned. \u201cSo?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel\u2019s voice dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe repairs were made the morning after David died.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped breathing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of repairs?\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel answered without looking away.<\/p>\n
\u201cFront-end damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
I read David\u2019s name until it stopped resembling a name at all. The letters seemed to separate on the page, each one becoming nothing more than ink pressed into old … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1419,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions\/1419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}