Chapter 5: The Part She Had Been Afraid to Say
The silence stretched long enough that Rosie shifted in her sleep again.
Lauren picked up her phone.
Set it back down.
Picked it up again.
"There's someone else who knows," she said finally.
I waited.
"Ethan told one other person.
Before the surgery." She pressed her lips together.
"He told his father."
The room tilted.
"Richard," I said.
"Yes."
Richard.
My ex-husband.
The man I had divorced when Ethan was twelve, who had spent the following eighteen years appearing and disappearing from Ethan's life in irregular intervals, who had shown up at the funeral in a dark suit and stood at the back and left before the reception without speaking to me.
"Why would he tell Richard?" I asked.
"They weren't close.
Ethan hadn't spoken to him in over a year."
"I know." Lauren's voice was careful.
"But Ethan called him the week before the surgery.
He said he needed to tell someone who wasn't you — someone who could handle it without falling apart.
His words, not mine.
He said he needed to say it out loud to someone and then let it go."
"And Richard said what?"
Lauren hesitated.
"Lauren."
"He told Ethan not to do it."
The air went out of the room.
"He told him the surgery was too risky.
That Rosie wasn't his legal responsibility.
That he had no obligation to a child he had never met and that Lauren had hidden from him deliberately." She was speaking faster now, like she needed to get through it.
"He said Ethan was throwing his life away for a woman who had lied to him."
My hands were very still on the letter.
"Ethan did it anyway," I said.
"Yes."
"And Richard knew.
He knew about Rosie.
He knew what Ethan was planning.
And he stood at the back of that funeral and said nothing to me."
Lauren said nothing.
She didn't need to.
I stood up.
I walked to the window.
The street outside was ordinary — a neighbor's car, a dog being walked, a child on a bicycle.
The world continuing as if nothing had shifted on its axis.
"He called me," I said.
"Three days after the funeral.
He said he was sorry for my loss.
He said Ethan was a good man." I turned back to face Lauren.
"He knew.
He already knew everything.
And he called me and said nothing."
"I found out last week," Lauren said.
"Ethan had written it in a second letter — one he left with his lawyer, to be opened after.
The lawyer contacted me.
I came as soon as I could."
"There's a second letter?"
She reached into her bag.
The envelope was sealed.
My name was on the front in Ethan's handwriting.
"He wanted you to have it after you'd had time to process the first one," Lauren said.
"His lawyer said he was very specific about the order."
I took it.
I didn't open it.
Not yet.
"Richard knew my son had a daughter," I said.
"He knew I had a granddaughter.
He let me bury Ethan without telling me."
"Yes."
I set the envelope on the table beside the first letter.
"I need you to do something for me," I said.
Lauren looked up.
"I need you to bring Rosie back tomorrow.
Can you do that?"
"Of course."
"And I need Richard's number.
Whatever number Ethan used to reach him."
Lauren's expression shifted — not quite fear, but something close to it.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
May you like
I looked at my son's handwriting on the two envelopes side by side.
"I'm going to finish a conversation," I said, "that should have happened at the funeral."
