Chapter 5: The Woman Who Stopped Calling
Ryan found a phone number for Carla Simms in forty minutes using nothing more than her name and the city where she'd lived when his father had met with her.
He wrote it on a piece of paper and placed it on Daniel's desk without saying anything.
I looked at the number.
"Have you tried it?"
"Not yet."
"Do you want me to leave the room?"
He shook his head.
He picked up his phone and dialed.
It rang four times.
Then a woman's voice answered — careful, slightly guarded, the way people answer calls from numbers they don't recognize.
"Hello?"
Ryan's hand tightened around the phone.
"Carla.
It's Ryan Pierce."
Silence.
"I know it's been a long time," he said.
"I know I don't have any right to call.
I'm calling because I found out my father wrote something down before he d*ed.
About what you told him.
And I need to know if it's true."
More silence.
Then: "Which part?"
"The child."
A long breath on the other end of the line.
"His name is Noah," Carla said.
"He's nine years old."
Ryan sat down on the edge of the desk.
I stayed very still.
"Is he mine?" Ryan asked.
"I had the test done when he was two.
I did it for myself, not for you.
I needed to know." Her voice was steady but not warm.
"Yes.
He's yours."
Ryan put his free hand flat on the desk the way he'd done on the kitchen counter that morning.
Steadying himself against a surface.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"Tucson.
We've been here four years."
"Does he know about me?"
"He knows his father didn't want to be involved.
I didn't tell him your name.
I told him that when he was old enough to ask more questions, I would answer them honestly." A pause.
"He's starting to ask more questions."
"Carla." Ryan's voice cracked slightly on the second syllable.
"I'm sorry.
I know that doesn't fix anything.
I know it's ten years too late.
But I am sorry."
"I know you are," she said.
"I could tell that even back then.
That was almost the worst part."
They stayed on the line for another twenty minutes.
I heard Carla ask twice whether Ryan was serious about wanting contact, and I heard Ryan say yes both times without hesitating.
By the end, they had agreed that Carla would speak to Noah first, and that Ryan would not push the timeline.
When he hung up, he sat with the phone in his hand for a while.
"Nine years old," he said finally.
"Yes."
"I missed nine years."
"You did."
He looked up at me.
"Are you angry at me?"
I thought about Daniel's letter.
About eighty thousand dollars paid in silence.
About a sealed envelope kept for a decade beneath an insurance policy.
About all the things a parent absorbs so that a child can keep moving forward.
"I'm not angry," I said.
"I'm sad.
There's a difference."
He nodded slowly.
Then his phone buzzed on the desk.
He looked at the screen.
A text from Lauren: *Come home.
We need to talk about the house.*
He showed it to me without comment.
The house she meant was my house.
The home she had lived in for three years on my generosity.
The building she had just referred to as something that required a conversation between her and her husband.
Ryan set the phone face-down.
"I'll handle it," he said.
"Ryan." I waited until he looked at me.
"Before you go downstairs, I need you to understand something.
What your father left in that letter was not a weapon.
He left it because he loved you and he wanted you to have the chance to do the right thing.
Lauren found out about Carla six months ago and she chose to use that information as pressure.
Those are two very different things."
"I know."
"Do you know what you're going to do?"
He picked up the phone.
Read Lauren's message again.
Set it back down.
"I'm starting to," he said.
Downstairs, the front door opened again.
Lauren was back.
May you like
Her footsteps moved through the hallway, into the kitchen, and then stopped directly below the study.
The silence from below felt like a held breath.
