Chapter 6: What Tom Greer Kept for Sixteen Years
Tom Greer lived twenty minutes away in a house with a green front door and a basketball hoop in the driveway that had clearly been there since Ryan was small.
He answered before we knocked.
He must have been watching for us.
He was a big man, broad through the shoulders, with the kind of face that had been weathered by something more than just weather.
He looked at Iris first.
Then at me.
Something moved across his expression that he quickly controlled.
"Come in," he said.
Ryan was already inside, sitting at the kitchen table.
He stood when we came in.
Iris gave him a small nod.
The kind that meant thank you and I'm okay and please don't make a fuss, all at once.
Tom poured coffee without asking.
Set four mugs on the table.
Sat down.
"I'll start," he said, "by saying I'm sorry.
I've known about you, Iris, since you were born.
Daniel told me.
And I've kept his confidence for sixteen years because he asked me to." He looked at me.
"I didn't know what you'd been through, Carol.
Not the full picture.
I knew his version.
I've since come to understand that his version wasn't the only one."
"What was his version?" Iris asked.
Tom wrapped his hands around his mug.
"That he was young and stupid and he hurt someone he loved.
That he knew he'd lost the right to be in your life.
That he spent years trying to become someone who deserved to find you, and by the time he thought he might be that person, he didn't know how."
"So he came here," Iris said.
"He came here."
"And he didn't contact us."
"He didn't know how to do it without going through your mother.
And he was afraid of what that would mean for you." Tom glanced at me.
"He didn't want to blow up your life.
He just wanted to — be in the same city for a while.
Know you were real."
Iris was quiet.
I said, "You mentioned a letter."
Tom reached into the kitchen drawer behind him and placed an envelope on the table.
It was sealed.
Iris's name was written on the front in handwriting I didn't recognize but somehow still knew.
"He wrote it six months ago," Tom said.
"Before he came here.
He gave it to me and said if anything ever happened, or if you ever came looking, I should give it to you directly.
Not through anyone else."
Iris looked at the envelope.
She didn't pick it up yet.
"What happened to him?" she asked.
Her voice was very careful.
"You said in case anything happened."
Tom set down his mug.
"Daniel had a heart attack," he said.
"Eight weeks ago.
He's alive.
He's recovering.
But it scared him badly enough that he called me and said it was time."
"Time for what?"
"Time for you to know he exists.
Whether you want anything to do with him or not."
Iris picked up the envelope.
Turned it over in her hands.
"Does he know we're here?" she asked.
"Right now.
Does he know?"
Tom nodded.
"I texted him when you pulled into the drive."
Iris looked at Ryan.
Then at me.
May you like
Then back at the envelope.
She slid her finger under the seal and opened it.
