Chapter 4: Six Months of Lies
I stood in that doorway for what felt like a very long time.
"Say that again," I said.
"I didn't want to hurt you—"
"Say exactly what you just said."
Robert straightened.
Something shifted in his posture.
The guilt was still there, but underneath it something harder had surfaced.
"You were struggling.
You had been struggling for years.
The anxiety, the medication, the months where you barely functioned.
I watched you fall apart after your mother's diagnosis.
I watched you fall apart after the miscarriage before this one.
I made a decision."
"You made a decision."
"Someone had to."
"She is my daughter."
"And I am her father.
I have the right to protect her."
I walked to the desk.
I picked up his phone.
He reached for it and I stepped back.
"Don't," I said.
He stopped.
I looked at the call log.
Dana's number appeared eleven times in the past three weeks.
Twice on the day I came home from the hospital.
Once at 11:47 at night, four days after the funeral, while I had been lying in the next room unable to sleep.
"You called her while I was in this house," I said.
"While I was grieving."
"I was checking on the baby—"
"You were managing your plan." I set the phone down.
"Who else knows?"
He said nothing.
"Robert.
Who else knows my daughter is alive?"
"My mother."
The floor seemed to shift under me.
His mother.
Eleanor.
Who had sat across from me at the memorial and held my hand and told me that God had a reason for everything.
"Your mother sat at that table and held my hand."
"She didn't want to be involved—"
"But she knew."
He didn't deny it.
I walked out of the study.
I walked to the kitchen, picked up my own phone from the counter, and dialed my mother.
She answered on the second ring.
"I need you to come over," I said.
"Right now.
Don't tell me you're busy.
Don't ask questions.
Just come."
"What happened?"
"She's alive, Mom." My voice broke for the first time.
"She's alive and Robert gave her to Dana."
The silence on the line lasted exactly two seconds.
"I'm already in the car," my mother said.
I stood at the kitchen window and watched the street.
Behind me I could hear Robert moving through the hallway.
He stopped at the kitchen doorway.
"We should talk about this calmly," he said.
"Before you do anything."
I didn't turn around.
"Where does Dana live now?"
"I'm not going to tell you that until we've talked."
I turned then.
"You are going to tell me where my daughter is," I said, "or I am going to call the police and let them ask you."
His expression shifted.
The hardness flickered.
"You don't want to do that."
"Try me."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he said the one thing I had not expected.
"If you call the police, Dana will disappear.
May you like
I've already made arrangements.
You'll never find her."
