Chapter 3: The Woman Who Came Back
She was standing in the doorway to the back garden, one hand on the frame, taking in the scene the way someone does when they already know what they're going to find.
Carol.
Diane's older sister.
I hadn't seen her since the funeral.
She had stood at the back of the church and left before the reception.
I had assumed she blamed me for something.
Grief makes people strange, and I hadn't had the energy to chase her.
She looked at Sophie first.
Then at me.
Then at Vanessa.
Her expression didn't change, but something behind her eyes did.
"I should have come sooner," she said.
Vanessa stepped forward.
"This is a private family matter, Carol.
You weren't invited."
"No," Carol said.
"I wasn't." She looked at me.
"Can we talk?
Inside.
Just the two of us."
"Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of everyone," Vanessa said.
Carol turned to her slowly.
"I wasn't talking to you."
I carried Sophie into the house and set her on the sofa with a dry towel.
She was still shivering, the wet teddy bear pressed against her chest.
I kissed her forehead and told her I would be right back.
Carol was waiting in the kitchen.
She had closed the door behind her.
"How long has she been like this?" she said.
"Like what?"
"Don't protect her, Daniel.
I can see the marks on Sophie's arm from here."
I looked down at the table.
There were no marks.
There had never been marks.
But there had been other things.
Sophie waking up crying.
Sophie flinching when Vanessa raised her voice.
Sophie asking me once, very quietly, if Mommy could come back.
"She's difficult," I said.
"I thought it was the adjustment.
I thought—"
"Diane knew," Carol said.
The kitchen went quiet.
"What do you mean she knew?"
Carol pulled out a chair and sat down.
She folded her hands on the table the way people do when they are about to say something they have been carrying for a long time.
"Diane called me three weeks before she passed.
She was scared, Daniel.
She said Vanessa had been coming around the hospital.
Asking questions about the estate.
About the house.
About what Sophie would inherit."
"Vanessa didn't even know Diane.
They never met."
"That's what Diane thought too, at first." Carol looked at me steadily.
"But Diane had a friend in the hospital admin office.
A woman named Ruth.
And Ruth told her that someone had been requesting access to Diane's medical file.
Requesting updates on her condition."
My hands were flat on the table now.
I could feel the edge of the key in my pocket.
"Who was requesting them?"
"The name on the forms was a legal firm.
Harwick and Associates." Carol paused.
"Daniel, Vanessa's maiden name is Harwick."
The room shifted.
Not physically.
But something in the way I understood the last two years rearranged itself completely.
"She was watching Diane die," I said.
"She was timing it," Carol said.
I stood up.
I needed to move.
I walked to the window and looked out at the garden.
Vanessa was still on the patio, her phone to her ear, her back to the house.
"The key," I said.
"Diane hid a key inside Sophie's bear."
Carol nodded slowly.
"I know what it opens."
I turned around.
"Diane gave me a letter," Carol said.
"Eight months ago.
She told me not to open it unless something happened to Sophie.
She said I would know when the time was right." She reached into her jacket pocket and set an envelope on the table.
"I think the time is right."
My name was on the front.
Diane's handwriting.
May you like
I hadn't seen her handwriting in two years.
My hand was shaking when I reached for it.
