Chapter 6: The Man Who Didn't Know
I played the voicemail on speaker, there at Vera's kitchen table, with Claire's hand still in mine.
The voice was older.
Careful.
The voice of a man who had rehearsed what he was going to say and then forgotten half of it.
*"This message is for — well, I'm not sure exactly who I'm calling.
I got this number from an old mutual contact, a woman named Patsy Greer, who said you might be connected to a family in Hale County.
My name is Robert Caulfield.
I'm calling because I received a letter recently.
From Diane Marsh.
Or Diane Holloway, as I knew her.* Pause.
*She passed away in February.
I didn't know until the letter arrived last week.
It was written before she died.
It said — well.
It said some things I've been sitting with for several days now.* Another pause, longer.
*If this reaches the right person, I'd appreciate a call back.
I'm sorry to come out of nowhere like this.
I just — I didn't know.
I want you to know that.
I didn't know.*"
The voicemail ended.
The three of us sat without speaking.
Then Claire said, "He got a letter too."
"Diane covered everything," Vera said quietly.
She didn't sound surprised.
She sounded like a woman watching a plan unfold that had been set in motion long before any of them arrived in this kitchen.
"She must have sent his at the same time she sent mine."
"She told him about me," Claire said.
"It sounds that way."
Claire stood up.
She walked to the window and stood with her arms crossed, looking out at the dark yard.
"She waited until she was dying," Claire said.
"And then she told everyone everything, all at once, so nobody could stop it."
"She wanted the truth to land," Vera said.
"Even if she wasn't here to see it."
"That's one way to put it." Claire's voice had an edge I hadn't heard before.
Not anger exactly.
Something harder than anger.
The feeling you get when you realize the person you're grieving was more complicated than grief allows.
"Claire," I said.
"I'm okay." She turned around.
Her eyes were dry now.
"Call him back."
"Now?"
"Yes.
Now." She came back to the table and sat down.
"I've been running from this for three hours.
I'm done running."
I looked at the number on my phone.
Then I called it back.
It rang twice.
"Hello?" The same voice from the voicemail.
Cautious.
Awake, even at this hour.
"Mr.
Caulfield.
My name is Jake Alderman.
I think you called looking for someone connected to the Alderman family in Hale County."
A sharp intake of breath.
"Yes.
Yes, that's right."
"I'm here with a woman named Claire.
Claire Marsh.
Diane Holloway was her mother."
Silence.
Long enough that I checked the screen to make sure the call was still connected.
"Is she — is Claire there?
Right now?"
"She's right here."
"Could I — would she be willing to speak with me?"
I looked at Claire.
She held out her hand for the phone.
"Mr.
Caulfield," she said.
Her voice was steady.
"I got a letter from my mother too.
I think we need to meet."
"Yes," he said immediately.
"Yes.
Wherever you want.
Whenever.
I'll come to you." A pause.
"I owe you that much."
"You don't owe me anything yet," Claire said.
"We don't know anything yet."
"No," he said.
"But I'd like the chance to find out.
If you'll let me."
Claire looked at me across the table.
I couldn't read her expression.
It was something between exhaustion and a door opening.
"We're going to a clinic in Lubbock tomorrow," she said.
"For a DNA test.
Both of us — me and Jake." She paused.
"If you want to be tested too, you should come."
Another silence.
"I'll be there," Robert Caulfield said.
After she hung up, she set the phone on the table and looked at it for a moment.
Then she looked at Vera.
"Did you know about him?" she asked.
"Did Diane ever mention him to you?"
Vera hesitated.
Just a half-second.
But Claire caught it.
"Vera."
"She mentioned him once," Vera said carefully.
"Years ago.
She said he was a good man who deserved better than what she'd given him." She paused.
"She said she'd always regretted not telling him."
Claire nodded slowly.
She picked up her mother's letter from the table and folded it back into the envelope.
"She spent forty years making sure everyone was protected," Claire said.
"And in the end, she protected everyone except herself."
She stood up and looked at me.
"I need to sleep," she said.
"Can we go back to your parents' house?"
"Of course."
She looked at Vera.
"Thank you.
For keeping this.
For telling us."
"Your mother was a good woman," Vera said.
"She made hard choices in hard circumstances.
That's all most of us ever do."
Claire picked up her shoes from the floor where she'd set them when she came in.
She held them in one hand, the envelope in the other.
At the door, she stopped.
"Jake," she said without turning around.
"Whatever the test says tomorrow — I need you to know that I'm not afraid of the answer.
I'm only afraid of not knowing."
May you like
I turned off the kitchen light and followed her out into the dark.
Behind us, Vera stood at the window and watched us go.
