Chapter 6: Patricia
He didn't sleep that night either.
He lay on top of the covers in the dark and stared at the ceiling and thought about a woman named Patricia Hale, who had sat across from his mother — a frightened young woman with a newborn — and told her to disappear.
He thought about the word *kindest.* The way Eleanor had said it.
*She told your mother that the kindest thing she could do for you was to disappear.*
The cruelty of dressing it as kindness.
That was what kept him awake.
By morning he had made two decisions.
He called Sarah first.
"Patricia Hale," he said when she answered.
"Is she still alive?"
A pause.
"Daniel—"
"Is she?"
"I don't know.
I didn't even know she existed until yesterday."
"She'd be in her eighties.
Maybe late seventies." He sat up.
"She was Dad's mother.
Which means she may have been at the funeral.
Which means Mom might know where she is."
"You're going to talk to Mom about this."
"I have to."
"Okay." Sarah's voice was careful.
"Do you want me there for that too?"
"No.
This one I need to do alone."
He drove to Margaret's house at nine in the morning.
She opened the door before he knocked — she must have seen his car from the window.
She was already dressed, already had coffee made.
She had been expecting him.
They sat at the same kitchen table.
The same two chairs.
"Patricia Hale," Daniel said.
Margaret's face didn't change.
But her hands, wrapped around her mug, went very still.
"You know that name," he said.
"Yes."
"Tell me what you know."
Margaret set the mug down.
She looked at it for a moment, then looked at him.
"She came to see me," Margaret said.
"Once.
About a year after your father and I married.
You were maybe two years old." She paused.
"She told me she had handled the situation with your mother.
Those were her words.
*Handled.*"
Daniel's jaw tightened.
"And you didn't ask what that meant?"
"I asked." Margaret's voice was flat.
"She told me your mother had been unstable.
That she had been struggling since before the pregnancy.
That the family had tried to help her and she had refused." She looked at Daniel.
"I believed her.
I was twenty-six years old and I believed her because I wanted to believe her.
Because believing her meant I didn't have to think too hard about what I was part of."
"And later?
When you had more time to think?"
Margaret was quiet for a long moment.
"I told myself it wasn't my responsibility to investigate," she said.
"I told myself your father had made his choices before I was in the picture.
I told myself you were safe and cared for and that was what mattered." She looked at her hands.
"I told myself a lot of things."
"Did you ever meet her again?
Patricia?"
"At the funeral.
She came.
She didn't speak to me much.
She looked at you once, across the room." Margaret paused.
"The way she looked at you—"
"What?"
"Like you were a problem that had been managed." Her voice was very quiet.
"I didn't like it.
I told myself I was imagining it."
Daniel stood up from the table.
He walked to the window and stood there with his back to her.
"She's the reason my mother is d*ad," he said.
Margaret said nothing.
"Not the only reason.
But she went to her.
She threatened her.
She told a woman holding a newborn baby that the kindest thing she could do was to disappear." He turned around.
"And she d*ed three months later."
Margaret's eyes were wet.
"I didn't know that.
Daniel, I swear to you—"
"I know you didn't know the details." His voice wasn't angry.
It was something past anger.
"But you knew enough to ask questions and you chose not to.
For thirty years, you chose not to."
She didn't argue with that.
He picked up his jacket from the back of the chair.
"Is Patricia Hale still alive?" he asked.
Margaret hesitated.
Then: "As far as I know.
She's in a care home in Gloucester.
She's eighty-one." A pause.
"Your father visited her every month until he couldn't anymore."
Daniel put his jacket on.
"Daniel." Margaret stood.
"What are you going to do?"
He looked at her across the kitchen — the same kitchen, the same table, the same distance that had always been between them.
"I'm going to go talk to her," he said.
"She's eighty-one years old—"
"And my mother was twenty-four." He picked up his keys.
"I'll call you when I'm back."
He left before she could say anything else.
In the car, before he started the engine, he sent Eleanor a message.
*I know where she is.
I'm going to see her.
Do you want to know what she says?*
The reply came quickly.
*I want to be there.*
He stared at the message.
Then he typed: *Portland to Gloucester is a long way.*
Her reply: *I've been waiting thirty-two years.
May you like
Distance is nothing.*
He started the engine.
