Chapter 4: What Diana Remembered and Refused to Say
Diana asked Richard to leave them alone.
He didn't move immediately.
He looked at Emily, then at the phone on the desk, then at Emily's son standing near the window with his arms folded.
"Five minutes," Richard said.
It wasn't permission.
It was a boundary.
He left without touching the envelope.
The door clicked shut.
Diana stood in the middle of the room and didn't seem to know where to put her hands.
She tried the back of a chair.
Then her own arms.
Then she let them fall to her sides.
"His name," Diana said.
"Your son.
What's his name?"
"Daniel," Emily said.
Diana looked at him.
"He looks like you."
"You said that already.
Richard said it too." Emily's voice was even.
"That's not what I came here to talk about."
"I know." Diana turned away and moved toward the window on the far side of the room.
She stood with her back to Emily for a moment.
"I've thought about this.
About you.
More than you'd believe."
"Then talk."
Diana turned around.
Her eyes were wet but she wasn't crying yet.
"I was seventeen, Emily.
I didn't understand what they were doing.
My father told me it was to help you.
That you needed treatment and your mother couldn't afford it and Richard's family had a — a facility.
A private one."
"A facility," Emily repeated.
"A care home.
For young women who were—" Diana stopped.
"Who were what?"
Diana pressed her lips together.
"Who were considered unstable."
The word landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
Daniel straightened from the window.
"My mother isn't unstable."
"I know that," Diana said quickly.
"I know that now.
I knew it then, too, if I'm honest." She looked at Emily.
"You weren't unstable.
You were grieving.
Your father had just died.
You were struggling in school.
And someone decided that struggling looked like a problem they could manage."
"Manage," Emily said.
"I'm using their word.
Not mine."
"What did your father get out of it?"
Diana flinched.
"Diana.
What did your father get?"
"A contract." Diana said it to the floor.
"Richard's family had a property development on the edge of town.
My father's firm had been trying to get the surveying contract for two years.
After you were — after you went to the facility, they got it."
Emily stood very still.
Daniel looked at his mother.
Her jaw was set.
Her hands were quiet.
"So my father died," Emily said slowly, "my mother was alone and frightened, and someone used that to put me away.
And your father got a contract."
"Emily—"
"And you." Emily's voice didn't rise.
"You knew."
"Not at the time.
I found out later.
When I was nineteen."
"And you said nothing."
"I didn't know how to find you.
I didn't know where they'd taken you.
By the time I understood what had happened, you were — you'd been gone for two years and Richard said you'd been released and moved away and that you were fine."
"I was not fine," Emily said.
Diana's first tear fell.
She didn't wipe it.
"I know."
"I spent four years in that place, Diana.
Four years.
And when they let me out, I had nothing.
No school records that made sense.
No references.
A file that said I had a history of emotional instability." Emily picked up the envelope from the desk.
"My mother spent the rest of her life believing she had done the right thing.
That she had saved me.
Nobody ever told her what it actually was."
"I'm sorry," Diana whispered.
"I'm not here for sorry."
"Then what do you want?"
Emily held up the envelope.
"I want every document.
I want the name of the facility.
I want to know who authorized the original admission beyond your father and Richard.
And I want to know whether it was legal."
"It wasn't," Diana said.
It came out quickly, like something she had been holding back for a long time.
"I had a lawyer look at it.
Three years ago.
Quietly.
The consent form your mother signed — it wasn't sufficient for an involuntary placement of that length.
And the facility itself was closed in 2001 after an investigation."
Emily looked at her steadily.
"You had a lawyer look at it."
"Yes."
"Three years ago."
"Yes."
"And you still said nothing."
Diana sat down in the chair she had been gripping.
"I was afraid of Richard."
"Is that the whole truth?"
A pause.
"I was afraid of what it would mean for my family."
Daniel spoke from the window.
"So you protected yourself."
Diana looked at him.
She didn't deny it.
Emily walked to the door and opened it.
Richard was in the hallway, closer than he should have been for someone who had agreed to give them five minutes.
"I need the full file," Emily said.
"Everything your family holds with my name on it.
I need it within seventy-two hours."
"That's not how this works," Richard said.
"I have a recording.
I have the original consent form.
I have a lawyer who has already filed a preliminary inquiry with the county records office." Emily looked at him without blinking.
"And I have Diana."
Richard looked past her into the room.
Diana was still sitting in the chair.
She didn't look up.
His jaw tightened.
"Seventy-two hours," Emily said again.
"Or I stop being quiet."
She walked back through the hallway toward the glass doors.
Daniel followed.
Behind them, Richard stood in the doorway of the study looking at Diana.
Diana finally looked up.
"She has the bracelet," Diana said quietly.
"She never took it off."
Richard said nothing.
May you like
He reached into his jacket pocket.
His hand came out holding a phone.
