Chapter 5: The Call That Changed Everything
I stared at the screen.
"What is it?" Henry asked.
I turned the phone so he could read it.
His expression didn't change, but he set his cup down very carefully.
"She found you first," he said.
"Apparently."
I typed back to Carol: *Don't call that number back.
I'll explain soon.
Everything is okay.*
I wasn't sure that was true.
But I needed Carol to stay out of this until I understood what I was dealing with.
I looked at the number my daughter had forwarded to me.
It matched the one at the bottom of Matt's letter exactly.
Diane had called my daughter.
Not me.
Carol.
"Why would she call Carol?" I said, more to myself than to Henry.
"Maybe she didn't know which number was yours.
Maybe she searched the family name and found Carol first." He paused.
"Or maybe she was nervous about calling you directly."
I sat with that for a moment.
Then I pressed call.
It rang twice.
"Hello?" The voice was careful.
A little low.
A little uncertain.
"This is Eleanor," I said.
"Matt's wife."
Silence.
Then a breath.
"I didn't think you'd call," she said.
"I almost didn't."
Another pause.
I heard something in the background — a door, maybe, or a window being closed.
"I'm sorry I called your daughter," Diane said.
"I found the name online and I wasn't sure — I didn't want to frighten you.
I just wanted to know if you'd read the letter."
"I read it last night."
"Okay." Her voice was very quiet.
"Okay."
"I need to ask you something," I said.
"And I need you to be honest with me."
"Yes."
"Did you know about me?
About us — his family — before he found you?"
"No," she said immediately.
"My mother never told me his last name.
She said it was better that way.
I didn't know anything until he showed up at my door three years ago."
"And when he did?"
"I told him to leave." A short pause.
"The first time.
I told him I didn't need him and to go back to wherever he came from."
That surprised me.
"But you let him come back."
"He wrote me a letter.
Handwritten.
Twelve pages." Her voice shifted slightly — not softer exactly, but less guarded.
"He told me he wasn't there to make himself feel better.
He said he knew he didn't deserve anything from me.
He just wanted me to know that he had thought about me.
That he had never stopped thinking about me."
My eyes burned.
That sounded exactly like Matt.
"He was good at letters," I said.
"Yes." A beat.
"He told me that about himself.
He said you always said he expressed himself better on paper than in person."
I almost laughed.
It came out wrong — half a laugh, half something else entirely.
"Mrs.
— " Diane stopped.
"Eleanor.
I'm not calling to cause trouble.
I'm not asking for anything.
I have a life.
I'm not trying to insert myself into yours." She paused.
"But he asked me — before he passed, he asked me — if I would be willing to meet you.
He said it was the one thing he wanted that he couldn't arrange himself."
"He arranged quite a lot," I said, and I heard the edge in my own voice.
"I know.
He told me about Henry." Another pause.
"I think he was trying to make sure you weren't alone when you found out.
That was the part of him I came to believe was real."
I looked at Henry across the table.
He was watching me steadily, giving me nothing, letting me find my own footing.
"I'm still in South Carolina," I said.
"I changed my flight."
Silence on the other end.
"Beaufort is forty minutes from Myrtle Beach," Diane said carefully.
"I know."
The pause that followed was long enough that I could hear the ocean through my own window.
"I get off work Friday at four," she said finally.
"There's a coffee place on Carteret Street.
It's quiet in the late afternoon."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"I'll be there," I said.
I ended the call and set the phone face-down on the table.
Henry didn't ask me what I'd decided.
He could see it.
"Friday," I said.
He nodded.
"That gives you two days," he said.
"Do you want to talk about it or do you want to walk?"
I pushed back my chair and reached for my jacket.
"Walk," I said.
We went down to the water without another word.
The tide was coming in.
I picked up a shell near the waterline — small, lopsided, the kind most people step over.
I turned it over in my hand.
The ugly ones usually have the best stories.
I put it in my pocket and kept walking.
But that evening, when I called my son Daniel to tell him I was staying a few extra days, something in my voice must have shifted, because he said: "Mom.
May you like
What's wrong?
And don't say nothing."
