Chương 3
“Who is L?”
Margaret folded her hands.
“Leonard Hale.”
“My grandfather?”
“Rebecca’s father.”
“What was she afraid of?”
Margaret looked at Claire, then back to Daniel.
“He was violent.”
“Toward her?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw what he did.”
Daniel waited.
Margaret touched her left forearm through the cardigan.
“The night you were born, Rebecca came to our house before she went to the hospital. She was nineteen. She had bruises along her ribs and one eye nearly swollen shut. She had been hiding the pregnancy as long as she could.”
Claire’s anger had cooled enough for details to enter.
“Nineteen?”
Margaret nodded.
“She turned twenty a month later.”
Daniel’s hand tightened around the letter.
“And Dad knew her?”
“Thomas knew her family.”
“How?”
“He represented Leonard’s company.”
Claire looked at Daniel.
Thomas Dawson had been dead nine years. In family stories he existed as a collection of safe qualities: disciplined, funny when he relaxed, impatient with bad drivers, loyal to the Cleveland Browns long after moving south, the sort of father who checked tire pressure before road trips and called restaurants “joints” even when they had white tablecloths.
He had been a lawyer.
Claire had known that.
She had not known this.
Daniel said, “Represented how?”
“Civil work. Contracts. Labor issues. Leonard owned three regional trucking depots back then.”
“And Rebecca?”
“She came into Thomas’s office.”
“Why?”
“Looking for help.”
“With her father?”
“With leaving.”
Daniel stared.
Margaret glanced toward the photograph, the broken glass catching a small rectangle of daylight.
“She was pregnant. The baby’s father was gone. Leonard wanted the pregnancy handled quietly. When she refused, he told her she could leave with nothing.”
“What does that mean?”
“No money. No car. No place to live. He had already called the community college and withdrawn the tuition he was paying.”
Daniel gave a bitter little smile.
“Good man.”
“No.”
“Did Dad help her?”
“At first.”
The words settled.
Daniel looked at the letter again.
“At first.”
Margaret stood and walked to the table.
Her movements were slower now. She pulled out a chair, changed her mind, and remained standing behind it.
“Thomas found her a room through a church organization. He helped arrange prenatal care under a charity program. I met her twice before you were born.”
Daniel’s head lifted.
“You met her.”
“Yes.”
“And afterward?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
Margaret’s fingers pressed into the chair back.
“Three.”
Claire saw Daniel stop breathing for a moment.
“You saw my mother after I was born three times.”
“Yes.”
“And you never thought that might be relevant?”
“I thought about it every day.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“Why was I with you?”
Margaret took a moment.
“Rebecca was scared Leonard would find her. He had people looking. She asked Thomas whether you could stay somewhere safe while she went to her aunt’s and found work. We had been trying to have a child for eleven years.”
Claire looked at Margaret.
She had known that Margaret and Thomas had struggled to have children. It was part of the family history, usually reduced to one sentence: We couldn’t, and then Daniel came along.
Margaret continued.
“I said yes before I understood what yes would become.”
Daniel unfolded the legal sheet.
“What is this?”
Margaret did not look at it.
“Temporary guardianship.”
He scanned it.
“It says thirty days.”
“Yes.”
“And this is Rebecca’s signature?”
“Yes.”
“So she gave you temporary custody.”
“For thirty days.”
“And then?”
Margaret removed her glasses, wiped them on her blouse, put them back on.
“Then Thomas said Rebecca had decided not to come back.”
Daniel looked at the letter.
“The letter says the opposite.”
“Yes.”
“Did you have the letter?”
“No.”
“When did you get it?”
“Two years later.”
Claire stared.
Daniel did not move at all.
“Two years.”
Margaret nodded.
“How?”
“She sent it to me directly. Thomas had been receiving everything before then.”
Daniel looked toward the doorway as though he might walk out.
He didn’t.
“What happened after thirty days?”
“Thomas said Rebecca had signed adoption papers through an attorney in Ohio.”
“Did you see them?”
“Not then.”
“Did you ask?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He told me the attorney was handling it. He told me Rebecca didn’t want contact.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“And you believed him.”
“I wanted to.”
The kitchen went quiet.
Margaret corrected herself.
“No. That isn’t fair. I believed some of it because Thomas had never given me a reason not to trust him. But I wanted the rest to be true so badly that I did not ask the questions I should have asked.”
Daniel turned the legal paper over.
“When did you know?”
“That something was wrong?”
“That she wanted me back.”
Margaret looked at the letter in his hand.
“When that arrived.”
“I was two.”
“Yes.”
“And what did you do?”
“I confronted Thomas.”
“What did he say?”
“That Rebecca was unstable. That she had been in and out of treatment. That Leonard had tracked her down in Ohio. That if we reopened anything, Leonard would take control of the situation and you would end up with him.”
“Was that true?”
“I don’t know how much of it was true.”
“You didn’t check?”
“I tried.”
“How?”
“I called the return number on the letter. It had been disconnected. I wrote to the address. It came back. I called her aunt. Her aunt said she had moved.”
“And that was it?”
“No.”
Margaret’s voice sharpened for the first time.
“No, Daniel. It was not it.”
He said nothing.
“I hired a private investigator.”
Claire blinked.
Daniel looked almost offended by the new information.
“When?”
“1989.”
“What did he find?”
“Not enough.”
“What does that mean?”
May you like
“He found that Rebecca had been in Columbus for several months. Then Pittsburgh. Then nothing. Her driver’s license expired. She stopped using the bank account he located. There was no easy database then, no internet to type somebody’s name into. People could vanish by moving three counties away.”
“Did you keep looking?”
