Chapter 7: The Visit I Wasn't Ready For
I went back to the nursing home that evening.
I didn't tell anyone I was going.
Not Renee, not David.
I drove the twenty minutes alone with the photograph on the passenger seat and Laura's letter — still unopened — in my coat pocket.
I hadn't been able to read it yet.
I wasn't sure I was ready for her voice.
Dad was in the common room when I arrived.
He was seated at a table near the television, a cup of tea in front of him that had gone cold.
He was watching the screen but not really watching it.
He saw me come through the door.
He didn't look away this time.
I sat down across from him and placed the photograph on the table between us.
He looked at it for a long time without speaking.
"Gerald Marsh," I said.
His hand, resting on the table, curled slightly at the fingers.
He didn't pick up the photograph.
"I know what you did, Dad."
"You don't know everything," he said.
His voice was quieter than it had been two days ago.
Something in it had changed.
"I know you found her notebook.
I know you called her into the garden that night.
I know you told her to leave or you'd blame it all on her." I kept my voice level.
"I know a man named Marsh paid you to make sure she left the country.
And I know she spent forty years in Portugal because of what you did."
He was quiet for a long time.
The television played on.
A game show.
Someone winning something.
"Is that all you know?" he finally said.
"I know she d*ed eleven years ago.
I know Mom d*ed without ever finding out what happened to her.
I know you let that happen."
His jaw moved.
He picked up the cold cup of tea and set it down again without drinking.
"She found things she shouldn't have found," he said.
"She was fifteen when she started looking.
She was trying to protect people."
"She was going to go to the police." His voice sharpened slightly — the first real edge I had heard in it.
"Do you understand what that would have meant?
For this family?
For your mother?"
"Don't." The word came out hard.
"Don't make this about protecting Mom.
You protected yourself."
He looked at me then.
Really looked at me.
"Yes," he said.
"I did."
I hadn't expected him to say it so plainly.
It stopped me for a moment.
"Marsh had things on me too," he said.
"It wasn't just money I took.
There were decisions I made — early on, before I understood what he was building.
By the time I knew the full picture, I was already in it.
Laura finding that notebook meant everything came out.
All of it.
Not just Marsh.
Me too."
"So you sent her away to save yourself."
He didn't answer.
"She was your daughter."
"I know what she was."
"She was sixteen years old and you threatened her and put her on a plane to another country and then you packed her photographs into boxes and never spoke her name again."
His eyes were wet.
He didn't blink.
"And you let Mom search until she d*ed," I said.
"You watched her.
Every day.
You knew where Laura was and you said nothing."
"I didn't know where she was," he said.
"After she left — I didn't know.
Marsh handled it.
I told myself that meant I didn't have to know."
"That's not a defense."
"No," he said.
"It isn't."
The game show cut to an advertisement.
Bright colors.
A jingle.
"Her daughter is here," I said.
"Laura had a daughter.
Her name is Rosa.
She's been working at Sophie's school for three weeks because she promised Laura she would find me."
Dad's face changed in a way I had never seen before.
Something behind it collapsed quietly, like a wall giving way in slow motion.
"A daughter," he said.
"Her name is Rosa.
She looks like Laura.
She looks like me." I paused.
"She looks like you."
He put his hand over his mouth.
I stood up.
I picked up the photograph.
"Gerald Marsh is still running a business forty minutes from here," I said.
"A solicitor is looking at Laura's documents on Thursday.
I don't know yet what can be done legally.
But I'm going to find out."
He said nothing.
"I'm not doing this to hurt you," I said.
"I'm doing it because twelve people on a list in Laura's notebook lost money and never knew why.
Because Marsh is still out there.
And because Laura spent forty years carrying this and she deserved better."
I turned to leave.
"Ellen."
I stopped.
He hadn't used my name in years.
He always called me love, or sweetheart, the way old fathers do.
"The letter," he said.
"Whatever she wrote — whatever she said about me — she was right."
I walked out through the common room and into the cold car park.
May you like
I sat in the car for a while before I started the engine.
Then I reached into my coat pocket and took out Laura's letter.
