Chapter 4
I didn’t sleep.
At six in the morning, I was still sitting at the kitchen table with the threatening letter in front of me.
Mom had gone through the entire metal box.
She found seventeen letters from the Bennett family.
Four were birthday cards from my grandmother before she died.
Three were formal notices from lawyers.
The rest were from Richard.
Or at least they had his name on them.
Some begged Mom to come home.
Some told her never to return.
The handwriting changed.
The tone changed.
Even the paper changed.
But twenty-four years ago, my mother had been twenty-two, pregnant, terrified, and newly married.
She had believed what arrived in her mailbox.
I couldn’t blame her.
At seven, my phone rang.
Richard.
Mom saw the name.
“Answer it.”
I did.
“Hello?”
“Emma, I’m sorry to call so early.”
I looked at Mom.
“What is it?”
“You need to stay home today.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“The video went bigger overnight.”
“I know.”
“No. Bigger than that.”
I opened social media.
My face was everywhere.
The slap.
The water.
Richard entering.
Linda freezing.
Somebody had slowed down the moment his hand touched my cheek.
Someone else had found an old photograph of Mom.
Another account had posted pictures of Richard and Robert at a charity gala.
People were creating entire family trees.
“Okay,” I whispered.
Richard continued.
“Reporters are outside the restaurant.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“There are reporters outside your college too.”
I closed my eyes.
Mom cursed under her breath.
Richard said, “And Linda gave a statement.”
My eyes opened.
“What did she say?”
He hesitated.
That told me it was bad.
“What did she say?”
“She claims you knew exactly who she was before you served her.”
I laughed.
“She thinks I planned to get slapped?”
“She says you deliberately provided poor service to provoke her.”
Mom grabbed my phone.
“Put that woman on the phone.”
“Mom.”
Richard sighed.
“Claire, please.”
“Don’t ‘Claire, please’ me. Your daughter-in-law assaulted my child, and now she’s calling her a liar?”
“I know.”
“Then stop her.”
“I can’t control what Linda says.”
“You control everything else.”
The words hit him.
Even through the phone, I could hear it.
He spoke quietly.
“That’s part of what I’m beginning to understand.”
Mom returned the phone to me.
Richard said, “My attorney wants the original video.”
“The couple has it.”
“We’ve contacted them.”
I frowned.
“How?”
“Mark had their reservation information.”
“Doesn’t that violate—”
“They agreed voluntarily.”
“Okay.”
“Emma, there’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“Robert called an emergency board meeting.”
I didn’t understand.
“So?”
“He wants me removed as chief executive.”
I stared at the phone.
“Because you defended me?”
“He says my judgment has become impaired.”
Mom laughed bitterly.
“There it is.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“The Bennett family method.”
Richard went quiet.
Mom folded her arms.
“If somebody becomes inconvenient, declare them unstable.”
“Claire.”
“Isn’t that what you did to Daniel?”
My father’s name changed everything.
I sat straighter.
“What does Dad have to do with this?”
Mom’s face changed.
She realized she had said too much.
“Nothing.”
“No. Don’t do that.”
“Emma.”
“What happened with Dad?”
My father died when I was nine.
A drunk driver crossed the center line outside Franklin.
That was what I had always been told.
I knew he had worked construction.
I knew he loved old country records.
I knew he made pancakes every Sunday morning.
I knew almost nothing about his relationship with my mother’s family.
Richard spoke before Mom could.
“Daniel worked for one of my companies.”
I stared at Mom.
“You told me he never met Grandpa.”
“He didn’t. Not after we married.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She sat down.
For the first time, she looked frightened.
“Your father got a job with Bennett Development before we started dating.”
Richard continued.
“He was a project engineer.”
I could barely breathe.
“He worked for you?”
“Yes.”
“And you thought he dated Mom for money.”
“Yes.”
Mom said, “Daniel discovered financial irregularities on a hotel project.”
Richard went silent.
I looked between the phone and my mother.
“What kind of irregularities?”
“Fake invoices,” Mom said. “Contractors being paid for work they never completed. Money disappearing.”
“And Dad reported it?”
“He tried.”
“To Grandpa?”
Mom shook her head.
“To Robert.”
My stomach dropped.
Richard’s voice came through the phone.
“I was never told that.”
Mom stared at the table.
“Daniel kept copies.”
“What happened to them?”
“He gave them to someone at the company.”
“Who?”
She looked at me.
“Linda.”
I stood so fast my chair fell backward.
“What?”
“She was working in corporate legal then.”
Richard whispered, “No.”
Mom’s eyes filled with tears.
“She wasn’t married to Robert yet.”
I tried to make sense of it.
“Dad found missing money. He gave evidence to Linda. Then what?”
Mom pressed her lips together.
“He was fired.”
I looked at the phone.
Richard didn’t speak.
“Did you fire him?”
“No,” he said.
“Then who did?”
“I believed Robert had handled a performance issue.”
Mom laughed once.
“Performance issue.”
“Claire, I swear to you—”
“You signed the termination.”
Silence.
Richard whispered, “I signed hundreds of documents.”
“That was your excuse for everything.”
I sat down again.
My hands were shaking.
“What happened to the evidence?”
Mom looked toward the old metal box.
“I don’t know.”
Richard said, “I want you both at my house.”
“No,” Mom replied immediately.
“We need to compare those letters.”
“No.”
“Claire, somebody may have been intercepting communications.”
“For twenty-four years?”
“Yes.”
She stared at the phone.
“Who?”
Richard didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
We were all thinking about the same two people.
Robert.
Linda.
I remembered Robert’s warning.
You have no idea what you just started.
My phone buzzed.
Another unknown message.
This one included a photograph.
My stomach turned.
It was a picture of me leaving campus two days earlier.
Taken from across the street.
Under it were six words.
You should have stayed a waitress.
Mom saw it.
Her face went white.
Richard heard my breathing change.
“What happened?”
I sent him the photo.
Ten seconds later, his voice became ice cold.
“Do not leave the house.”
“Grandpa—”
“Emma, listen to me.”
I had never heard him sound afraid before.
“This is no longer about a restaurant.”
Mom took the phone.
“Who would follow her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have one hour.”
Richard hesitated.
“One hour for what?”
“To show me every letter you claim you sent.”
My mouth fell open.
Mom continued.
“And if I find out you are lying to my daughter, I will walk out again.”
Richard’s answer came immediately.
“I understand.”
Mom hung up.
I stared at her.
“You’re going to his house?”
“We are.”
“What changed?”
She looked at the photograph of me on my phone.
Then at the threatening letter she had received twenty-four years earlier.
“My whole life,” she whispered, “I thought your grandfather was the person keeping us away.”
She picked up the metal box.
“Now I need to know who was actually standing between us.”
An hour later, Richard’s driver took us through iron gates into a neighborhood I had only seen in magazines.
The Bennett estate sat on twelve acres.
Stone walls.
Tall windows.
A circular driveway.
I expected to feel impressed.
Instead, I felt angry.
My mother had worked two jobs after Dad died.
There were nights she skipped dinner and told me she wasn’t hungry.
Meanwhile, this house existed.
Richard met us at the door.
He didn’t try to hug Mom.
That was smart.
He led us directly to his study.
On the desk were three boxes.
“Every copy I kept.”
Mom opened the first one.
For forty minutes, nobody spoke.
We compared letters.
Dates.
Envelopes.
Signatures.
Then Mom suddenly stopped.
“What?”
She pulled out a handwritten birthday card.
It was addressed to me.
My fifth birthday.
Emma,
You don’t know me yet, but I hope someday you will.
Your grandmother would have loved you.
Happy birthday.
Grandpa Richard
Mom covered her mouth.
“I never got this.”
Richard looked devastated.
He opened another folder.
“I sent one every year.”
Mom whispered, “None of them came.”
My anger changed shape.
It didn’t disappear.
But now it had somewhere else to go.
Then Richard pulled out one final envelope.
“This came back to me.”
The return address belonged to Mom’s old apartment.
Across the front someone had written in black ink:
STOP CONTACTING US.
Mom stared at the handwriting.
“That isn’t mine.”
Richard looked at her.
“I thought it was.”
She touched the ink.
Then her face changed.
“I know this handwriting.”
Richard froze.
“So do I.”
I looked between them.
“Whose is it?”
Neither answered immediately.
May you like
Finally Mom whispered the name.
“Robert.”
