Michael stared at Dad as if the twenty-eight missing years between them had suddenly become less important than a single night neither of them had ever discussed.
“You helped Rebecca put that woman in Grant’s car?”
Dad lowered his head.
“Yes.”
“And you never asked what happened to her?”
“I asked.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
The old anger between brothers had apparently survived the decades intact. Michael’s voice carried no patience now, only disbelief sharpened by exhaustion.
Dad rubbed both hands over his face.
“I was twenty-nine. I was scared. Rebecca was screaming. Mom was telling everyone to calm down. The woman could barely stand. Grant said he was taking her to a hospital.”
“And you believed him.”
Dad looked at Michael.
“Yes.”
Michael laughed bitterly.
“Of course you did.”
“Stop.”
“No. That is apparently what everyone did whenever Rebecca needed something hidden. They believed whatever explanation made it easiest not to look.”
Dad stood.
“I know.”
The answer robbed Michael of his next accusation.
Dad stepped closer.
“You think I haven’t spent every hour since Christmas discovering what my willingness not to look cost everyone?”
Michael’s expression softened slightly.
Dad continued.
“I’m telling you what I remember because Lily deserves the truth, not because I think I behaved well.”
Daniel remained beside the opened wall compartment, arms folded tightly.
“Start at the beginning.”
Dad nodded.
The memory came in fragments.
August 27, 1998.
A violent thunderstorm had moved across southern Wisconsin that evening. Dad had been home in Chicago when Evelyn called around nine.
“She sounded frightened.”
“What did she say?” I asked.
“That there had been trouble at the lake house.”
“What kind?”
“She wouldn’t explain.”
“Was Rebecca with you?”
“No.”
That mattered.
Dad had believed Mom was spending the evening with a college friend.
He drove north alone.
By the time he reached Lake Geneva, the storm had become severe enough that branches covered sections of the road.
“The front door was open.”
Michael leaned on his cane.
“And Rebecca?”
“In the living room.”
“What was she doing?”
“Arguing with Mom.”
“About?”
Dad closed his eyes.
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
“Try.”
He remembered Evelyn saying, You cannot fix this by taking what belongs to someone else.
Rebecca had answered that it was already done.
Then Dad noticed the young woman.
She was sitting on the kitchen floor.
Barefoot.
A blanket around her shoulders.
Blood on her dress.
“She looked twenty, maybe younger.”
Eleanor whispered, “Did she tell you her name?”
Dad shook his head.
“She kept asking for her daughter.”
Daniel stared at the birth certificate.
“Lily.”
“Probably.”
“What did Rebecca say?”
Dad swallowed.
“That the baby was safe.”
“Where?”
“I didn’t know.”
Michael stepped closer.
“Did the woman know me?”
Dad’s expression changed.
“That’s the part I remembered this morning.”
Michael froze.
“She said your name.”
“How?”
“She kept asking Rebecca where Michael was.”
The room went silent.
Michael gripped his cane.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Dad stared at the floor.
“She said, ‘Michael promised he would help me.’”
Michael looked genuinely confused.
“I never promised a pregnant woman anything.”
Dad continued.
“She also said you told her to go to Evelyn if something happened.”
Michael’s confusion deepened.
“I don’t remember her.”
“Could she have known you through construction?” Daniel asked.
“Possibly.”
“Grant?”
Michael looked toward the window.
“That would make more sense.”
Eleanor had been examining the copied birth certificate.
“If she was connected to Grant, Evelyn may have used her own identity on the infant record deliberately.”
“To hide the mother?” I asked.
“Or to hide Lily from Grant.”
That possibility changed the shape of the story again.
The woman may not have been running from Mom.
She may have been running from Grant.
“Then why was Rebecca involved?” Sebastian asked.
Dad answered.
“Because she had the baby.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?”
“When I arrived, Rebecca had already taken the infant somewhere.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never saw Lily?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know Rebecca had her?”
“Because the woman accused her.”
Dad remembered the young mother trying to stand.
She pointed at Rebecca and screamed that she had stolen her daughter.
Rebecca denied it.
Evelyn did not.
“What did Grandma say?” I asked.
Dad’s face tightened.
“She told Rebecca to bring the child back.”
Daniel whispered, “Jesus.”
“What happened next?”
“Grant arrived.”
Michael’s expression hardened.
“Called by who?”
“I assumed Mom.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Evelyn would never have called Grant.”
Dad looked at her.
“Then Rebecca.”
That seemed far more likely.
Grant entered calmly while everyone else was panicking.
He told Dad the young woman had escaped from a private clinic after suffering complications.
He said she was confused and dangerous.
“And you believed him,” Michael said.
Dad nodded.
“Yes.”
The young woman fought when Grant tried to move her.
Dad helped because he thought she needed medical care.
“She grabbed my shirt.”
Dad looked at his hands as though he could still feel her fingers.
“She said something.”
“What?”
His voice became quiet.
“Don’t let him take me back.”
Nobody moved.
Dad’s eyes filled.
“I helped him anyway.”
Michael looked away.
Dad continued because stopping would have been easier.
They placed her in the back seat.
Grant drove away.
Rebecca disappeared upstairs.
Evelyn stood in the rain watching the taillights vanish.
“What did Grandma say?” I asked.
Dad looked at me.
“She said, ‘Arthur, someday you are going to understand what you just helped happen.’”
The sentence sat heavily between us.
“And you still never asked?” Daniel said.
“I asked Rebecca the next morning.”
“What did she say?”
“That the woman had been admitted for psychiatric treatment.”
“Name?”
“She wouldn’t give me one.”
“Hospital?”
“She said it was confidential.”
Michael laughed bitterly.
“And you accepted that.”
Dad turned on him.
“Yes, Michael. I accepted it.”
His voice cracked.
“I accepted too much. Are you waiting for me to disagree?”
Michael fell silent.
Dad lowered his voice.
“I spent my life believing avoiding conflict made me peaceful.”
He looked at us.
“It made me useful to people who depended on silence.”
Nobody had an answer to that.
Daniel picked up the photocopied certificate.
“If Lily’s biological mother knew Michael, we need her identity.”
Eleanor nodded.
“The clinic.”
“Still operating?”
“No.”
“What happened to the records?”
“Some should have been archived.”
Daniel immediately started making calls.
While he worked, my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A single photograph appeared.
Not Lily.
A woman.
The picture was old, probably taken in the late nineties.
She stood outside a construction trailer beside Michael.
Michael looked at the image.
His face changed.
“I know her.”
Dad stepped closer.
“Who?”
Michael enlarged the photograph.
“Anna.”
“Anna who?”
“Anna Voss.”
Eleanor went rigid.
Daniel stopped speaking mid-call.
“Voss?”
Michael nodded slowly.
“Grant’s sister.”
Everything inside me seemed to drop.
The bleeding woman had not merely known Grant.
She had been his family.
Michael stared at the photograph.
“Anna worked bookkeeping for one of the subcontractors.”
“Were you involved with her?” Dad asked.
“No.”
“Then why did she say you promised to help?”
Michael thought.
Then his eyes widened.
“The accident.”
“What?”
“She saw what happened.”
Michael lowered himself into a chair.
“Anna knew the injured worker.”
“She had evidence?”
“She handled payroll and site records.”
Eleanor understood.
“She knew Grant participated in the cover-up.”
“Yes.”
“And she came to you?”
“Maybe.”
Michael pressed his fingers against his temple.
“I remember her asking questions after the accident.”
“Why don’t you remember a pregnancy?”
“Because she wasn’t pregnant when I left Chicago.”
Dad looked at the birth date.
Michael had disappeared weeks earlier.
Anna’s pregnancy must already have been advanced, but perhaps hidden beneath loose clothing.
Daniel asked the obvious question.
“Who was Lily’s father?”
Nobody knew.
Another message arrived.
This time only three words.
ASK GRANT HIMSELF.
I looked around.
“He’s still watching us.”
Daniel’s security team had already begun tracing the messages, but the sender used disposable numbers routed through different services.
Michael stared at Anna’s photograph.
“If Grant knew his sister had a child, why hide her?”
Eleanor answered quietly.
“Maybe he didn’t.”
We all looked at her.
“What?”
“Rebecca may have taken Lily before Grant arrived.”
Dad nodded slowly.
“That matches what I remember.”
“So Grant came for Anna, not the baby.”
“Yes.”
“And spent years trying to find the child?”
Michael looked toward the empty compartment.
“Maybe that’s what he’s been searching for.”
The theory explained something that had bothered me.
Grant wanted Grandma’s evidence.
But he also seemed obsessed with Lily.
Not necessarily because she could expose him.
Because she was Anna’s daughter.
His niece.
Daniel looked at Eleanor.
“Call Lily again.”
She did.
This time the phone rang only once.
Someone answered.
Eleanor stood.
“Lily?”
Silence.
Then a woman’s voice.
“Mom?”
Eleanor nearly collapsed with relief.
“Where are you?”
“I’m okay.”
Daniel moved closer.
“Put it on speaker.”
Eleanor did.
“Lily, where are you?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“What happened?”
“I got a message from your old number.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“It wasn’t me.”
“I figured that out.”
“Are you alone?”
A pause.
“No.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Who is with you?”
Lily heard the unfamiliar voice.
“Who’s that?”
Eleanor looked at him.
There was no gentle way left.
“His name is Daniel.”
Silence.
“Okay.”
“He is your biological brother.”
Another silence.
Longer.
Then Lily gave a small disbelieving laugh.
“I’m sorry?”
Daniel stepped toward the phone.
“Apparently we were all supposed to learn this under better circumstances.”
“Who are you?”
“Daniel Mercer.”
The line became quiet.
“I know that name.”
Daniel frowned.
“How?”
“The man with me mentioned you.”
Every person in the room stiffened.
“Who is with you?” Daniel asked.
Lily answered.
“Grant Voss.”
Eleanor gripped the table.
“Lily, get away from him.”
“He says he’s my uncle.”
Michael stood despite his injuries.
“Lily, listen to me.”
“Who is that?”
“My name is Michael Montgomery.”
The line went silent again.
“I know your name too.”
Michael looked at us.
“How?”
“Grant told me you helped my mother.”
Michael’s eyes filled.
“Anna?”
“Yes.”
“Is Anna alive?”
A long pause.
Grant’s voice came faintly through the phone.
Then Lily answered.
“He says she is.”
Michael stared at the speaker.
“Where?”
Lily asked someone away from the phone.
We heard Grant reply.
Then Lily came back.
“He says he’ll tell you.”
“When?”
“When Chloe brings Evelyn’s ledger.”
Daniel swore.
I leaned toward the phone.
“Lily.”
“Yes?”
“I’m Chloe.”
Another pause.
“The Chloe?”
I almost laughed.
“I don’t know what he told you.”
“He said Grandma Evelyn trusted you.”
My throat tightened.
“He wants the ledger?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t have it.”
Grant’s voice became clearer in the background.
Lily relayed his answer.
“He says you have half.”
“What half?”
“The notebook.”
“It was stolen.”
“He knows.”
Of course he did.
“Then what does he want from me?”
Lily asked.
Grant answered.
Her next words chilled me.
“He wants what Evelyn left inside the Christmas mug.”
I stared at the phone.
Sebastian frowned.
“What Christmas mug?”
Then I remembered.
The ridiculous ceramic gift Mom and Dad had given me the night they kicked me out.
The mug I had kept.
The mug now sitting on the bookshelf in my apartment.
I looked at Dad.
“Who bought my Christmas present?”
His face changed.
“Rebecca.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: The Cheap Christmas Mug Was Never A Joke, And What Grandma Hid Inside It Explained Why Rebecca Needed Chloe Out Of The House
Christmas Dinner Was Almost Over When My Parents Told Me To Leave, Then Mom Asked The Question Dad Was Never Supposed To Hear
Part 13 of 40
