Chapter 5: What Father Tried to Change
Aunt Ruth looked around the reception hall once, the way people do when they're about to say something they've been holding for a long time.
"Not here," she said.
"Come with me."
She led me through the side door off the main hall and into the small sitting room the venue used for vendor meetings.
A round table, four chairs, a window overlooking the parking area.
She closed the door.
"Sit down, sweetheart."
I sat.
She sat across from me and folded her hands on the table — the same gesture my mother used, I noticed.
My father's family and their careful hands.
"Your father called me in February," she said.
"About six weeks before he passed.
He was already in the hospital by then, but he was still sharp.
You know how he was."
I did.
Dad had been sharp until nearly the end.
Reading, talking, asking questions.
Even when he couldn't sit up without help.
"He told me he'd made a mistake," Aunt Ruth continued.
"He said he'd added Vanessa to the insurance policy as sole beneficiary about a year earlier, during a period when you and he weren't speaking."
I went still.
"We weren't speaking?"
"You'd had a falling out.
He didn't tell me the details.
He said it was his fault and that he'd handled it badly." She paused.
"He said Vanessa had encouraged the distance between you two.
That she'd told him things about you that he later realized weren't true."
The champagne glass was still in my hand.
I set it on the table.
"He wanted to change the policy," Aunt Ruth said.
"He called the insurance company from his hospital room.
He asked what he needed to do to update the beneficiary." She stopped.
"What happened?"
"He needed to submit a form.
A physical form with a witness signature.
He asked the nurse to help him.
She said she'd bring the paperwork the next morning." Aunt Ruth's jaw tightened.
"That night, Vanessa came to visit him.
She stayed for two hours.
The next morning, your father told the nurse he'd changed his mind about the form."
The sitting room was very quiet.
"He changed his mind," I repeated.
"Or someone changed it for him." Aunt Ruth looked at me steadily.
"I don't know what Vanessa said to him that night.
He wouldn't tell me.
But he called me afterward and he sounded different.
Smaller.
He said, 'Ruth, I think I've made a mess of things and I don't know how to fix it now.'"
"Did he try again?
To change the form?"
"He passed eleven days later."
I stood up.
I didn't mean to — my legs just moved.
I walked to the window and looked out at the parking lot.
A catering van.
Two rows of guest cars.
A bird on a fence post.
"She went to see him," I said.
"She knew he was going to change the policy.
And she talked him out of it."
"That's what I believe, yes."
"Can you prove it?"
"I can tell Detective Reyes what he told me.
Whether that rises to the level of evidence — " She opened her hands.
"I'm not a lawyer."
I turned around.
"Why didn't you tell me any of this before?
Why didn't you tell me after he passed?"
Aunt Ruth's expression didn't flinch, but something moved behind her eyes.
"Because you were grieving.
Because I wasn't certain.
Because I kept telling myself maybe I was wrong about Vanessa, maybe she was just — " She stopped.
"And because your father asked me not to.
He said he didn't want you to carry it."
"He didn't want me to carry it." The words came out flat.
"So instead I carried nothing.
I thought he'd just forgotten to update the policy.
I thought it was an oversight."
"I know."
"I defended her, Ruth.
At the reading of the will, when the policy came up and there was nothing in it for me, I told Mom it was probably an accident.
I told her Dad must have meant to fix it."
"Emily — "
"I defended her." My voice finally cracked on that.
Just once.
"While she was sitting there knowing exactly what she'd done."
Aunt Ruth stood up and came around the table.
She put both hands on my shoulders the way she used to when I was small and had fallen off something.
"Listen to me," she said.
"You defended her because you are not the kind of person who assumes the worst about someone they love.
That is not a flaw.
That is who you are." She waited until I looked at her.
"But now you know.
And now Detective Reyes knows.
And now it's not yours to carry alone anymore."
My phone buzzed on the table.
I looked at the screen.
It was a message from a number I didn't recognize.
*You think today was bad?
May you like
You have no idea what I know about Daniel.
Call off the investigation or you'll find out on your anniversary instead.*
