Chapter 5: What My Father Saw
My father's letter was four paragraphs long.
He had never been a man who used extra words.
*Ava, if you're reading this, something went wrong.
I hope I'm mistaken.
I hope Jonathan never has to give you this.
But I want you to know that whatever happened, I saw it coming before you did — and I made sure you would be all right.*
*I didn't like Ethan.
I want to say that plainly because I never said it plainly when I was alive, and I should have.
He is charming and he is careful and he always knew exactly what to say to me when I was watching.
But I watched the way he looked at this house.
Not at you.
At the house.
A man in love looks at the woman.
I know the difference.*
*The property is yours.
Jonathan has the paperwork.
No one can take it from you without your signature, and I trust you will not give that signature away the way you gave away your quiet and your opinions and your peace.
You are worth more than you have been allowing yourself to believe.
That is the only thing I regret — that I didn't say it loudly enough while I still could.*
*I love you.
Be harder to move than you think you are.*
I read it twice.
Then I folded it along the original crease and held it in both hands.
Jonathan was watching me.
"He told you," I said.
"Before the wedding.
He told you he didn't trust Ethan."
"He expressed concerns, yes."
"Why didn't you say something to me?"
"He asked me not to.
He said it was your choice to make.
He only wanted to make sure that whatever choice you made, the house was protected." Jonathan set down his coffee.
"I disagreed with him.
I thought you should know.
We argued about it.
He won."
"He usually did."
"Yes."
I looked at the letter in my hands.
My father had been a quiet man.
A civil engineer who built bridges for thirty years and said most of what he meant through what he built rather than what he said.
He had walked me down the aisle without a word against Ethan.
He had shaken Ethan's hand at the reception and smiled.
And the whole time, he had been watching where Ethan's eyes went.
"What do I do with this?" I said.
Not about the letter.
About all of it.
"Tonight, nothing.
Tonight you rest." Jonathan stood and gathered the folder.
"Tomorrow, when you're discharged, I'd like you to come to my office before you go home.
There are a few things I want to put in front of you while Ethan is still off-balance."
"What kind of things?"
"Protective things.
Nothing aggressive.
Just making sure that if he tries to make any move on the property — a petition, a joint ownership claim, anything — the legal ground is already prepared."
I nodded.
He picked up his jacket from the back of the chair.
"Jonathan." He stopped.
"Did my father know about the other woman?"
A pause.
"He suspected there was someone.
He didn't have a name."
"But he suspected."
"He said — and I'm quoting him — 'A man who looks at a house that way is already looking for the door.'"
I turned that over in my mind.
"He was right," I said.
"He usually was," Jonathan said.
"Get some sleep, Ava."
He left.
The nurse came back at eleven to check my temperature.
It had dropped to 101.8.
She seemed pleased.
I drank the water she brought without being asked.
I slept in pieces — an hour, then awake, then another hour.
Each time I woke I looked at my phone.
Ethan had stopped calling after ten.
There were two text messages.
The first: *I'm not the villain here.
Please let me explain.*
The second, sent forty minutes later: *Mom called me.
She's very upset.
She says she had no idea about the house.
I think you need to consider how this looks to her.*
I read them both.
Then I put the phone face-down and went back to sleep.
In the morning, a different nurse brought breakfast and told me the doctor would be in around eight to review my labs.
My temperature was 99.4.
The IV had done its work.
I ate the toast.
I drank the orange juice.
At seven-fifteen, my phone rang.
Not Ethan.
Diane.
I looked at her name on the screen for three full rings.
Then I answered.
"Ava." Her voice was different from any version of it I had heard in three years.
Flattened.
Like something had been pressed out of it.
"I need to ask you something."
"All right."
"Did you know about the woman?"
"I found out last night."
A long silence.
"How long has it been going on?"
"At least eight months that I can confirm.
Possibly longer."
Another silence.
Longer.
"He told me," Diane said slowly, "that you were difficult.
That you were cold.
That you pulled away from him."
I said nothing.
"I believed him," she said.
"I want you to know that I understand now that I should not have."
It was not an apology.
It was something adjacent to one — the shape of an apology without the full weight of it.
But from Diane Mercer, at seven in the morning, in that flattened voice, it was more than I had expected.
"I'm going to Jonathan's office this morning," I said.
"After that, I'm going home.
Ethan won't be there."
"No," she said.
"He's here.
He came to my house last night."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"He's been here since midnight," Diane continued.
"He's been on the phone most of the night.
I don't know who he's been talking to, but Ava — he has papers.
A folder of papers.
He left them on my kitchen table this morning and I looked at one of them before he woke up."
"What did it say?"
Her voice dropped.
"It had Cassandra Foyle's name on it.
And yours.
And something about a legal petition." She paused.
"I don't understand all of it.
May you like
But it had a court filing date.
Next Thursday."
