Chapter 6: The Man Who Was Told She Was Gone
Daniel Marsh lived forty minutes away, in a town called Ferris, in a house with a green door and a truck in the driveway that had seen better years.
He was fifty-one.
He had a daughter from a later relationship — a girl named Sophie who was twelve and apparently very good at football.
He worked for a construction company.
He coached a youth team on Saturdays.
Ruth told Caitlyn these things on the drive over, not because she had to, but because she understood that walking toward a stranger who might be your father is easier when he is not entirely a stranger.
"He's nervous," Ruth said.
"I want you to know that.
He asked me three times what he should say."
"What did you tell him?"
"That he should just say hello and let you lead."
Caitlyn looked out the window at the passing fields.
"Is he a good person?"
Ruth thought for a moment.
"I think he's a person who got something taken from him and didn't know it.
I think that does things to people." She paused.
"He coaches children on Saturdays.
He didn't have to do that."
The green door opened before they reached it.
Daniel Marsh was tall, with dark hair going grey at the sides and eyes that were — Caitlyn noticed this before anything else — the same shape as her own.
She had always thought her eyes were unusual.
Too wide.
Too steady.
Her mother had called them unsettling.
He stood in the doorway and didn't say anything for a moment.
Then: "Hi."
"Hi," Caitlyn said.
"Come in.
Please." He stepped back.
His hands were at his sides and he didn't know what to do with them.
"I made tea.
I didn't know if you — I also have juice.
And water.
And I think there's coffee if Ruth—"
"Tea is fine," Ruth said.
They sat in his kitchen.
It was clean in the way a person cleans when they are expecting someone important — surfaces wiped, nothing on the table, a slight smell of something recently washed.
Sophie was at school.
He had a photo of her on the refrigerator.
Caitlyn looked at it without meaning to.
"That's Sophie," he said.
"She knows — I told her last night.
That I might be meeting someone.
That it was important." He wrapped both hands around his mug.
"She said to tell you she hopes you like football."
Something moved in Caitlyn's chest.
She looked back at the table.
"I don't know much about it," she said.
"She'll fix that," he said.
"She fixes everything whether you want her to or not."
A silence.
Not uncomfortable.
More like two people standing at the edge of something large, waiting to see who steps first.
"I didn't know," he said.
"I need you to know that.
I was told — I was told there were complications.
That the baby didn't—" He stopped.
Set the mug down.
"I believed it.
I had no reason not to.
I left because there was nothing left to stay for, and I've spent twenty years thinking—" He pressed his mouth together.
"I'm sorry.
I'm not doing this right."
"You're doing fine," Ruth said quietly.
"I looked for records," he said.
"After Ruth contacted me.
Before the test came back.
I looked for anything with your name on it, any document, any — I found nothing.
She was very thorough."
"She usually is," Caitlyn said.
He looked at her.
Really looked at her.
The way people look when they are searching for something they have been missing for a long time and are not yet sure they are allowed to find it.
"The test came back," he said.
"You know that."
"Yes."
"I don't know what you want from me," he said.
"I don't want to assume.
I don't want to walk in and — you've had a whole life.
You don't know me.
I'm a stranger who drives a truck and coaches football and makes bad tea." He glanced at her mug.
"Is it bad?"
She took a sip.
It was slightly too strong and slightly too hot.
"It's fine," she said.
He nodded.
Looked at the table.
"I just want you to know," he said, "that if you want — whatever you want.
Whatever that looks like.
I'm not going anywhere."
Caitlyn set her mug down.
Outside, a car passed.
A dog barked somewhere down the street.
The refrigerator hummed.
She looked at the photo of Sophie on the refrigerator.
The girl was mid-laugh, hair flying, one arm thrown around a teammate.
"Can I come back?" Caitlyn asked.
"Another time.
When Sophie's here."
Daniel Marsh looked up.
His eyes were bright in a way that had nothing to do with the kitchen light.
"Yes," he said.
"Yes.
Whenever you want."
Ruth drove her back in the late afternoon.
The fields were gold.
Caitlyn watched them and didn't speak for a long time.
Then she said: "What happens to Patricia now?"
Ruth kept her eyes on the road.
"That depends on what the investigation finds."
"What are they investigating?"
Ruth was quiet for a moment.
"Several things," she said carefully.
"The fire.
The door.
The night at the hospital.
And some questions about how you came to be in her care in the first place."
Caitlyn turned that over.
"She kept the boot," she said.
"Under my bed.
Why would she keep it?"
Ruth didn't answer immediately.
"That's one of the things they're trying to understand," she said.
The fields kept passing.
Gold, then shadow, then gold again.
"She wanted me to find it," Caitlyn said.
Not a question.
May you like
Ruth said nothing.
Which was its own kind of answer.
