Chapter 4: The Call She Should Not Have Made
Jennifer set the phone on the table between us, screen up, and let it ring one more time.
"Speaker," Lizzie said.
Jennifer answered.
"Hello."
Kayla's voice came through sharp and fast, like she had been rehearsing.
"I want you to listen to me very carefully.
What you did today was humiliating.
I don't know what your grandmother has filled your heads with over the years, but I am your mother.
I carried you.
I gave birth to you.
And you put a photograph in a bag and handed it to me in front of the neighbors like I was some kind of criminal."
Jennifer said nothing.
"I came here today because I wanted to give you both a chance," Kayla continued.
"My husband, Richard, is a very successful man.
He has connections.
He can do things for your careers, your futures, that your grandmother never could have dreamed of giving you.
All I need is for you to show up tomorrow, smile for a photograph, and act like a family."
Lizzie leaned toward the phone.
"And if we don't?"
A short pause.
"Then I'll make sure Richard knows that you two are unstable.
That you have issues.
That your grandmother raised you in a way that left you emotionally damaged.
Richard has a lawyer who handles family matters.
I can make things very uncomfortable."
I stared at the phone.
Twenty years.
And this was what she had come back for.
Not the girls.
A photograph.
A prop for her new husband's family album.
Jennifer's voice stayed completely calm.
"Kayla.
Do you know what was in that envelope?"
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"What envelope?"
"The one Lizzie was holding when you left."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I think you do," Jennifer said.
"I think that's actually why you're calling."
The line went quiet for three full seconds.
"You have nothing," Kayla said.
But the sharpness was gone.
Something underneath it had shifted.
"Gerald Marsh," Lizzie said.
The silence that followed was a different kind of silence.
"Where did you hear that name?" Kayla's voice had dropped to almost nothing.
"We've known for two years," Jennifer said.
"We were waiting to see if you'd ever tell the truth on your own."
"That is — that is ancient history.
That has nothing to do with—"
"It has everything to do with it," Jennifer said.
"You weren't grieving our father.
You were relieved.
And you left two babies with a 56-year-old woman because a man with money was waiting for you.
Except it wasn't Richard, was it.
Gerald came first.
And then there were others."
I hadn't known that last part.
I looked at Lizzie.
She gave a small nod.
Kayla's voice came back hard and tight.
"You cannot prove anything.
You are two young women with a grudge and an old photograph.
No one will care."
"Open the envelope, Kayla," Jennifer said quietly.
"When you get home tonight.
Open it.
And then decide if you still want to talk about lawyers."
She ended the call.
The three of us sat without speaking for a moment.
Then I reached for the envelope again.
This time no one stopped me.
I pulled it open.
Inside was a single folded document — two pages, printed on plain paper, with a letterhead I recognized immediately.
It was from a law firm.
Dated eleven months after Daniel's d*ath.
And it bore Kayla's signature at the bottom.
I read the first paragraph.
Then I read it again.
"She signed away the life insurance," I said.
"To Gerald Marsh," Lizzie said.
"As a named beneficiary.
She changed the paperwork before the ink was dry on the death certificate."
I set the pages down on the table.
Daniel had taken out that policy when the girls were born.
It was meant for them.
For their education, their futures.
He had told me so himself.
It was gone.
Redirected.
Signed away to a man who had been sleeping with his wife while he was still alive.
Jennifer was watching me carefully.
"Grandma.
Are you all right?"
I looked at my granddaughters.
At their faces — Daniel's eyes in both of them, his same straight nose, his same way of going quiet when something mattered.
"No," I said honestly.
"But I will be."
Lizzie said, "There's one more thing in the envelope."
I looked down.
Beneath the document, a business card.
A name I didn't recognize.
A title: Family Estates Attorney.
"We made an appointment," Jennifer said.
May you like
"For Thursday.
For all three of us."
