Chapter 5: Eleven Years of Silence
He sat with the photograph for a long time before he moved.
Then he picked up his phone, opened the contacts, and called his family's solicitor.
The phone rang five times before a groggy voice answered.
"Gerald," Julian said.
"I need you to pull my father's full estate file.
Everything.
Including anything that was sealed."
"Julian, it's past one in the morning—"
"I know what time it is."
A pause.
The sound of Gerald sitting up in bed.
"I'll be at the office by seven."
"Six," Julian said.
"And Gerald — was there ever a separate provision?
Something outside the main will?"
Silence on the line.
A silence that lasted two seconds too long.
"We'll talk at six," Gerald said.
And hung up.
Julian set the phone on the desk beside the photograph.
He walked down the hall to Mrs.
Doyle's room and knocked twice.
She opened the door immediately.
She was still dressed.
She had not been sleeping.
"Sit down, Mrs.
Doyle," he said.
"I'd rather stand."
"Sit down."
She sat on the edge of the narrow bed.
Her hands were folded in her lap.
Her face was composed in the way of someone who has rehearsed this moment many times and is now simply waiting for it to begin.
Julian held up the photograph.
She looked at it.
She did not look surprised.
"How long did you plan to wait?" he asked.
"I wasn't waiting," she said.
"I was working."
"For eleven years."
"Yes."
"You came into this house knowing who my father was to you."
"To Thomas," she corrected quietly.
"What your father was to Thomas."
Julian set the photograph on her bedside table.
"Tell me about him."
Mrs.
Doyle looked at the photograph for a moment.
When she spoke, her voice was steady but something underneath it was not.
"Your father and I were together for two years.
Before he met your mother.
He knew about Thomas before the wedding.
He promised he would provide for him.
He did, for a while — money sent through a third party, nothing with his name on it.
Then it stopped." She smoothed her hands over her knees.
"Thomas grew up without knowing who his father was.
I raised him on my own.
When he was nineteen, he got sick.
The treatment was expensive.
I wrote to your father.
He never replied."
"Thomas," Julian said.
"Where is he now?"
Mrs.
Doyle's composure held for exactly one more second.
Then it didn't.
She pressed her lips together.
Her chin moved.
She looked at the wall above Julian's shoulder.
"He d*ed," she said.
"Four years before I came to work here.
The treatment came too late." She brought her eyes back to Julian's face.
"I came here because I wanted to know if your father had ever felt anything.
If there was anything in that safe that proved he had thought of Thomas even once after he stopped the payments." Her voice was very quiet now.
"That was all I wanted.
I didn't want money.
I didn't want the estate.
I wanted to know if my son had mattered to him at all."
Julian looked at her for a long time.
"And Rachel?" he said.
Mrs.
Doyle closed her eyes briefly.
"I found out about her debt by accident.
A letter that came to the house addressed to her — I should have given it to her unopened.
I didn't." She opened her eyes.
"I am not proud of what I did with that information.
I told myself the compound was harmless.
I told myself no one would be hurt." Her voice dropped to almost nothing.
"I told myself a great many things."
Julian picked the photograph up from the bedside table.
"Emma nearly d*ed tonight," he said.
Mrs.
Doyle flinched.
It was small, but it was real.
"I know," she said.
"You need to understand that I am going to have to decide what to do with everything you've just told me."
"I know that too."
Julian looked at the photograph one more time — his father, young and unguarded, holding the hand of a boy who would never know his name.
Then he walked to the door.
May you like
"Don't leave the house tonight," he said.
He didn't wait for her answer.
