Chapter 3: The Call He Didn't Want Us to Hear
I stared at the text for a long moment before I showed it to Chloe.
She read it twice.
Then she looked up at me.
"Someone was watching him tonight.
Someone who knows about Grandma."
Mom was still sitting at the table, the photograph in her hands.
She hadn't put it down.
I stepped into the hallway and called the unknown number back.
It rang four times.
Then a woman answered.
"I wasn't sure you'd call," she said.
Her voice was careful.
Measured.
Like someone who had rehearsed this.
"Who is this?"
"My name is Patricia.
I'm a social worker at Meadowbrook Care Facility.
I've been Dana's primary caseworker for fourteen months."
I pressed my back against the wall.
"You sent that text?"
"Richard doesn't know I did.
And I'd prefer to keep it that way for now." A pause.
"Your daughter came into the facility tonight.
She was in the lobby when Richard arrived.
He saw her face.
He knows she recognized him."
"What does that mean?"
"It means he's going to come to your mother's house tomorrow and try to explain this his way.
Before she hears it from him, I think she deserves to hear it from someone who actually knows the full situation."
I looked back toward the kitchen.
Mom had set the photograph down.
She was smoothing the edge of it with one finger, the way she used to smooth the pages of books she loved.
"Tell me," I said.
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"Dana was in a car accident twenty-two months ago.
Severe brain injury.
She was in a coma for six weeks.
When she came out of it, she had significant memory loss and limited mobility.
She needs full-time care."
"And Richard—"
"Has been there every single evening since the day she was admitted.
He pays for her private room out of pocket.
He brings her things she likes.
He reads to her." Another pause.
"He is the only family she has."
My throat tightened.
"Why didn't he tell my mother any of this?"
"That," Patricia said, "is the question you need to ask him.
But I'll tell you what I know.
When Dana was first admitted, she was listed as having no next of kin.
Richard had her records updated within the first week.
He put himself down as her father."
I went very still.
"He put himself down as her father," I repeated.
"Yes."
"But is he?"
The silence on the other end lasted just long enough to mean something.
"That," Patricia said quietly, "is complicated.
And it's not mine to answer."
She told me she would be available if Mom wanted to speak with her directly.
Then she said goodnight and ended the call.
I stood in the hallway for a moment, the phone still warm in my hand.
When I walked back into the kitchen, Mom looked up at me immediately.
"Who was that?"
I sat down across from her.
"Someone who knows Richard.
Someone who knows Dana."
Mom's hands went flat on the table.
"Tell me everything."
I did.
All of it.
The accident.
The care facility.
The private room.
The nightly visits.
The way the nurses knew his name.
Mom listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she was quiet for a long time.
Then she said, "He never told me he had a daughter."
"I know."
"He told me he had no family left.
That he was completely alone."
"I know, Mom."
She looked down at the photograph again.
"Then who is she?"
Before I could answer, headlights swept across the kitchen window.
A car had pulled into the driveway.
May you like
Chloe stood up from the corner of the room where she'd been sitting silently.
"That's his car," she said.
