Chapter 5: Everything He Thought He Knew
They sat in a corner booth of a café two streets from the church.
Ruth had her hands wrapped around a cup of tea she hadn't drunk.
Daniel had ordered coffee and left it untouched.
Patrick sat at the counter near the door, far enough to give them space, close enough that Daniel knew he was there.
"Start from the beginning," Daniel said.
Ruth looked at him for a moment.
Then she nodded.
"Your father and I met when I was twenty-two.
He was older.
Successful.
I thought he was the most certain person I had ever met." She turned the cup slowly in her hands.
"We weren't married long before I understood what that certainty actually was.
He made decisions.
He didn't discuss them.
He didn't explain them.
He simply acted and expected the world to arrange itself around what he'd decided."
"He was the same with me," Daniel said.
"I know.
I'm sorry." She paused.
"When you were born, something changed in him.
You were his.
That was how he thought about it.
Not ours.
His." She looked at the table.
"When I started asking questions about things — money he was moving, a business arrangement I didn't understand — he told me to stop.
I didn't stop."
"What were you asking about?"
"A property deal.
He was using a family account I had partial access to.
I found transfers I couldn't account for.
I asked his solicitor — the same man whose name is on that page — and the solicitor told your father the same day." She exhaled.
"Three days later I was served with papers.
Abandonment of the family home.
Voluntary relinquishment of parental rights.
My signature was on them."
Daniel went still.
"You didn't sign them."
"I did not."
"Then how—"
"I don't know exactly.
I have a theory." She looked up.
"I was in hospital for four days that month.
A minor procedure.
Nothing serious.
But I was sedated for part of it." She held his gaze.
"I woke up and the papers were already filed."
The café was quiet around them.
Someone at the counter ordered a sandwich.
The coffee machine hissed.
"You're saying he forged your signature."
"I'm saying the signature on those documents is not mine, and I have never been able to prove it because I had no money and no lawyer and every person I tried to speak to had already been spoken to first." She set the cup down.
"By the time I had enough to try again, you were grown.
You had a life.
A career.
I didn't know if you'd want—" Her voice caught.
She steadied it.
"I didn't know if finding me would hurt you more than losing me already had."
Daniel looked at the table.
"I told myself you left because you wanted to," he said.
"My father said you found the life too small.
That you needed more than a family could give you."
"I know what he told you."
"I believed him for thirty years."
"I know that too."
He looked up.
"I'm angry."
"You should be."
"I don't know yet who I'm most angry at."
"That's fair," Ruth said.
"Take your time."
He picked up his coffee.
Drank some of it.
Set it back down.
"The property deal," he said.
"The transfers you found.
Do you know what they were for?"
Ruth reached into her coat pocket again.
This time she produced a small folded piece of paper — newer than the envelope, the fold sharp and recent.
"I found a name," she said.
"Six months ago, when I found the solicitor's copy.
There was a third document in the file.
A deed of transfer." She slid the paper across the table.
"That property still exists.
It was transferred again eight years ago."
Daniel unfolded it.
He read the name of the property.
Then the name of the current registered owner.
His hand went flat on the table.
"That's Vivienne's family trust," he said.
Ruth said nothing.
Outside, through the café window, a black car moved slowly past.
It stopped briefly at the corner.
Then it drove on.
Patrick appeared at the edge of the booth.
May you like
"Daniel," he said quietly.
"Vivienne's outside."
