Chapter 8: What Garrett Didn't Expect
I called the number that afternoon from the kitchen, with the door closed and Lily watching television in the next room.
It rang four times.
"Yes." A man's voice.
Flat, cautious.
"Is this Garrett?"
A pause.
"Who's asking?"
"Claire Alderton.
Daniel's wife."
Silence.
Then: "I don't have anything to say to you."
"That's fine," I said.
"I have things to say to you.
Daniel bought you out fairly.
I have the solicitor's records from the transaction.
I have the signed agreement.
I have the correspondence from your own legal team confirming the settlement."
"That settlement was—"
"Accepted," I said.
"By you.
In writing.
Fourteen years ago."
Another silence.
"You went to my neighbor six months ago," I said.
"You gave her a story about my husband.
You did it while he was dying, or just after — I don't know exactly when he became ill, but I know the timeline.
And you used a grieving street and a bitter woman to try to damage a man who was no longer here to defend himself."
"I told her the truth."
"You told her a version of events that a signed legal document contradicts." I kept my voice level.
"I'm going to give you one opportunity to leave this alone.
No more contact with Monica.
No more contact with anyone on this street or in Daniel's life.
If you make any further attempt to damage his reputation, I will take that signed settlement agreement and every piece of correspondence from the original dispute and I will make it available to anyone who asks."
"You're threatening me."
"I'm informing you," I said.
"There's a difference."
A long pause.
"He underpaid me," Garrett said.
His voice had changed — the flatness gone, something rawer underneath.
"I built that venture with him.
I found the first property.
He knew what it was worth and he bought me out before it matured."
"The agreement says otherwise."
"The agreement says what his solicitor wrote."
"And what yours accepted." I paused.
"I'm sorry if you felt wronged.
I genuinely am.
But Daniel isn't here to answer for it, and going to his neighbor with stories while his children were still learning to live without him — that's not justice.
That's just cruelty."
Garrett said nothing.
"Leave us alone," I said.
"Please."
I hung up.
My hands were shaking slightly.
I pressed them flat on the table until they stopped.
Paul called that evening.
I told him everything.
"Do you think he'll back down?" Paul asked.
"I think he's a man who's been carrying a grievance for fourteen years and he finally found somewhere to put it," I said.
"Whether he backs down or not, he has nothing left to use.
The letter is gone.
Monica has withdrawn.
And Frances has everything documented."
"And if he tries something else?"
"Then Frances handles it."
Paul was quiet for a moment.
"Daniel would have handled this the same way."
"I know."
"Quietly.
With the paperwork."
"He taught me well," I said.
After I put the children to bed, I went outside.
The trees stood bare against the evening sky, their branches clean and angular.
They looked wrong without the fruit — stripped, exposed.
But the branches were still there.
The roots were still there.
Ben had come outside earlier and stood beside me for a while without speaking.
"They'll grow back," he said eventually.
"Next year."
"Next year," I agreed.
He went inside.
I stayed a little longer.
I thought about Daniel standing in this same spot, in the early years, when the trees were young and hadn't produced much yet.
He'd been patient with them.
He'd said once that the best things took time to become what they were meant to be.
May you like
I thought he'd been talking about the trees.
I wasn't sure anymore.
