Chapter 4: Someone Didn't Want Me to Know
I read the message twice.
"Who sent that?" I asked.
"I don't know the number." Cara set the phone face-down on the table.
Her jaw was tight.
"But I've seen it before."
"When?"
"Three weeks ago.
Right after Zane — " She stopped.
"Right after I got the first letter from his solicitor telling me about the account.
Someone sent me a message that night saying I should decline the transfer and not make contact with his family." She looked at me.
"I didn't respond.
I thought it was a mistake.
Or someone testing me."
"You didn't tell anyone?"
"Who would I tell?" Her voice wasn't sharp.
Just tired.
"I don't have a solicitor.
I don't have anyone connected to Zane's world.
I'm a primary school teacher.
I live alone.
I didn't even know his wife's name until you showed up at my door."
I looked at the phone lying face-down between us.
Someone had known she received that transfer.
Someone had known quickly enough to send a warning within hours of the solicitor's letter going out.
And now, within minutes of my car pulling up outside, they knew I was here.
"Is there anyone who would have known about you?" I asked.
"Anyone from Zane's life who might have found out he had a daughter?"
Cara shook her head slowly.
Then she stopped.
"His brother," she said.
"Nolan?"
"I don't know his name.
I only know there was a brother because my mother mentioned him once.
She said when Zane came to see me — the one time — he brought someone with him.
Waited in the car.
My mother assumed it was a friend, but she said Zane called him by a name that sounded like a family name.
Something old-fashioned."
Nolan.
Zane's younger brother.
I had known him for thirty-four years.
He had stood at our wedding.
He had sat in the front row at Zane's funeral three weeks ago and wept into a folded handkerchief.
My stomach went cold.
"He was there," I said.
"When Zane saw you.
He drove Zane there."
Cara stared at me.
"You know him."
"He's my brother-in-law."
The word felt wrong in my mouth now.
Like a coat that no longer fit.
"He knew about me this whole time," Cara said.
It wasn't a question.
"He must have." I thought about the funeral.
Nolan standing close to me at the graveside, one hand on my shoulder.
*Zane loved you more than anything, Ruth.
Don't you ever doubt that.* At the time I had found it comforting.
Now I heard it differently — like a man drawing a curtain.
Cara picked up her phone and looked at the message again.
"What do you want to do?" she asked.
It was a genuine question.
She wasn't pushing.
She had spent thirty years on the outside of this family's decisions.
She was leaving this one to me.
I thought about Zane's letter.
*I asked my wife to bring this to you personally because I did not want it to arrive in a mailbox.
You deserved to be looked in the eye by someone.*
He had sent me here knowing I would find out.
Knowing I would sit exactly where I was sitting.
He hadn't been able to say it to my face — but he had arranged, in the only way left to him, for the truth to reach me anyway.
That was either the most cowardly thing he had ever done, or the most honest.
I still hadn't decided which.
"I'm going to call Nolan," I said.
Cara's eyes widened slightly.
"Now?"
"Not from here." I stood up.
"I need to think first.
And I need to look at some things at home." I paused.
"Would it be all right if I came back?
In a few days?"
Something in her face shifted — careful, guarded hope.
"Yes," she said.
"Of course."
I picked up my coat.
At the door I turned back.
"Cara.
The account Zane set up — don't decline it.
Whatever anyone tells you."
She nodded once.
I walked to my car.
I sat in the driver's seat for a moment without starting the engine.
My phone showed one missed call.
May you like
Nolan.
He had called while I was inside.
