Jeremy took the photocopy from my hand carefully, as if touching it too quickly might change the words.
He read the first line.
Then the second.
By the time he reached He never came, his face had gone gray.
“I’ve never seen this.”
“You said that.”
“I mean it.”
“You also said nobody knew about the letter in the box.”
“I was wrong about that too.”
I crossed my arms.
“Do you recognize Lacey’s handwriting?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“It looks like hers.”
“That is not the same as saying it is.”
“I haven’t seen her handwriting from back then in years.”
“You have a photograph she wrote on?”
“No. That was my handwriting.”
“I know.”
He read the note again.
“Where exactly was this?”
“Bottom folder.”
“There is no bottom folder.”
I stared at him.
“There was tonight.”
Jeremy stood and walked past me toward the kitchen.
I followed.
He emptied the box onto the table with more force than necessary.
Folders slid across the wood.
Statements.
Legal papers.
Receipts.
The unlabeled folder lay among them.
Jeremy picked it up.
“This isn’t mine.”
I looked at the plain manila cover.
“How can you know?”
“Because I use reinforced folders.”
I almost laughed.
“You want me to believe office supplies are the clue now?”
“I’m serious.”
He grabbed another folder from the box.
Metal fasteners.
Thicker edges.
Printed label.
Then he held up the unlabeled one.
Thin cardboard.
No fasteners.
No label.
“I wouldn’t put documents in this.”
“That proves very little.”
“I know.”
His frustration sounded genuine.
He opened it.
The note was the only page inside.
I watched him study the photocopy margins.
“What?”
“This was copied recently.”
“How do you know?”
“The paper.”
I looked.
Ordinary white copy paper.
“Could have been years ago.”
“Maybe.”
He turned it over.
Blank.
“No fax line. No old copier shadowing.”
“You have suddenly become a forensic document examiner?”
“No.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I’m trying to understand how something I’ve never seen ended up in a locked box.”
“Who had the key?”
“We already listed them.”
“No. We listed people who could find the spare.”
He looked at me.
“The main key?”
“Yes.”
He thought.
“I carry one.”
“Anyone else?”
“David had one during the renovation last winter.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“He borrowed the workshop while his garage was being rebuilt.”
“How long?”
“Two months.”
“And you never thought that mattered when we were discussing missing page four?”
“At the time I was thinking about people who knew the letter existed.”
“Maybe whoever opened the box learned it existed by opening the box.”
Jeremy sat down.
“You’re right.”
I hated how often I was hearing those words.
“Call David.”
“It’s late.”
“So?”
Jeremy looked at the clock.
12:21.
“He starts early. He’ll answer.”
He called.
David picked up after five rings.
“What happened?”
Jeremy put the phone on speaker.
“Did you ever open the locked cabinet in my workshop?”
Silence.
Then, “Why?”
I leaned toward the phone.
“Wrong answer.”
David exhaled.
“Jill’s there.”
“Yes,” I said.
Another pause.
“What did you find?”
My pulse quickened.
Jeremy looked at me.
“You opened it.”
David did not deny it.
“When?” Jeremy asked.
“A while ago.”
“How long?”
“Maybe six months.”
“Why?”
“I was looking for invoices.”
“You knew I kept invoices in the filing cabinet.”
“I know.”
“Then why were you in the locked cabinet?”
David cursed softly.
“Because Lacey asked me to check something.”
I felt the room narrow.
“What?” I asked.
“A letter.”
Jeremy stood.
“What letter?”
“Something she had written years ago.”
I looked at the note.
“About the baby?”
Silence.
Jeremy’s jaw tightened.
“David.”
“Yes.”
My hands went cold.
“You put this note in his box.”
“No.”
“Then what did you put there?”
“Nothing.”
“You just said Lacey sent you searching.”
“She thought Jeremy had an old envelope from 2004.”
“What envelope?”
David sounded exhausted now.
“I don’t know the whole story.”
“Then tell the part you do know.”
He breathed out.
“Lacey said she gave Jeremy a note before she left town. Years later she started wondering whether he ever received it.”
Jeremy stared at the phone.
“She never gave me anything.”
“That’s what she eventually believed.”
“Why search my cabinet?”
“Because she thought maybe you kept old things from your father’s house. Boxes. Papers. Stuff from before you married Jill.”
Jeremy shook his head.
“I didn’t.”
“I know. I looked.”
“You broke into my cabinet because she asked you?”
“You gave me the spare key.”
“To get tools.”
“I know.”
Jeremy’s anger sharpened.
“That didn’t mean read my private papers.”
“No.”
David paused.
“I shouldn’t have.”
I held up the photocopy.
“Did you see a letter addressed to me?”
David was silent.
The missing page.
Jeremy leaned closer to the phone.
“Did you open the envelope I wrote Jill?”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to stop.
“Did you remove page four?”
“No.”
Jeremy slammed his palm onto the table.
“David.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“You opened a sealed envelope.”
“Yes.”
“Read it.”
“Yes.”
“And expect me to believe the page disappeared by magic?”
“I read all five pages. I put them back.”
My stomach tightened.
“All five?”
“Yes.”
“So page four existed six months ago.”
“It did.”
“What did it say?” I asked.
David hesitated.
“Mostly about Karen.”
“Mostly?”
“And about why Jeremy thought you would leave him.”
I looked at Jeremy.
He frowned.
“What do you mean?”
David continued reluctantly.
“You wrote that Jill had once said if you ever cheated the marriage would be over.”
I remembered.
Years ago.
A movie.
A conversation in bed.
I had said betrayal was the one thing I did not think I could forgive.
At the time, Jeremy had agreed.
“You remembered that.”
Jeremy looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
David added, “There was also something about Lacey’s pregnancy.”
My eyes moved to the photocopy.
Jeremy went still.
“What?”
“You wrote that she told you before she left that there might have been a complication.”
Jeremy shook his head.
“No.”
“You did.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“I remember because it was the only part I didn’t understand.”
I leaned forward.
“What exactly did he write?”
David paused.
“That Lacey said there was something about the baby he needed to know, but she wouldn’t tell him over the phone.”
Jeremy’s breathing changed.
I stared at him.
“You did know about another secret.”
“I remember a call.”
“Finally.”
“No. Listen.”
He closed his eyes.
“She called after we broke up. Said she needed to tell me something in person. I thought she was trying to get me to meet.”
“So you didn’t go.”
“No.”
“And then she left.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know it was about the baby?”
“Not for sure.”
David said quietly, “Your letter said you suspected.”
Jeremy looked sick.
“That was three years ago. I had been talking with Lacey again. She may have reminded me.”
“May?”
He shook his head.
“I don't know.”
I stared at him.
“Your memory becomes foggy exactly where the truth becomes inconvenient.”
“That’s fair.”
“I don’t want fair. I want accurate.”
He nodded.
David spoke.
“There’s more.”
I looked at the phone.
“What?”
“When I opened the cabinet, page four had a sticky note on it.”
Jeremy frowned.
“What sticky note?”
“Yellow. Small.”
“What did it say?”
David hesitated.
“Ask her before the chapel.”
I looked at Jeremy.
He looked back at me.
“Whose handwriting?” I asked.
“Lacey’s.”
My pulse quickened.
“So Lacey had already been in the box.”
“I assumed so.”
Jeremy shook his head.
“She was never here alone.”
“Could Karen have brought her?”
I thought of my sister’s visits.
Four or five meetings with Lacey.
Secrets layered inside secrets.
“Call Karen.”
Jeremy reached for his phone.
I stopped him.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if she knows we found the note, she’ll prepare.”
“You think your sister planted it?”
“I think somebody did.”
I picked up the photocopy.
“And whoever did wanted us to find it now.”
Jeremy stared at the words.
“What is the ‘truth about the baby’?”
“That’s what we ask Lacey tomorrow.”
His face tightened.
“If she’s well enough.”
The sentence changed the air.
Neither of us had said aloud what both knew.
Tomorrow might be our last chance to ask anything.
I gathered the documents.
“You sleep.”
Jeremy laughed once without humor.
“You think that’s happening?”
“I don't care whether you actually sleep. I need you out of this room.”
He nodded.
At the hallway he stopped.
“Jill.”
“What?”
“If Lacey tells us something tomorrow that changes what happened back then—”
“It won't change what you did now.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
I expected him to leave.
Instead he said, “I don’t want you thinking I’m searching for an excuse.”
I looked at him.
“For once, I believe you.”
He went to the guest room.
I remained at the table.
The note pulled me backward through twenty-two years.
Lacey pregnant.
Jeremy cheating with me.
A requested meeting he never attended.
A miscarriage.
A secret about the baby.
What could be left?
Wrong dates?
A medical problem?
A possibility that the pregnancy had lasted longer than Lacey told him?
My imagination became dangerous.
I forced myself to stop.
At two in the morning I went to bed.
I slept perhaps ninety minutes.
At 5:38, my phone rang.
Vanderbilt.
I answered before the second ring.
“This is Jill.”
A nurse introduced herself.
“Lacey asked that we call you.”
My heart lurched.
“What happened?”
“She had a difficult night.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
The answer came quickly.
“But if you intend to come today, I would come sooner rather than later.”
I sat upright.
“How soon?”
“As soon as you reasonably can.”
Jeremy appeared in the doorway.
He had heard my voice.
I put the phone down.
“What?”
“Her nurse.”
His face went blank.
“We need to go.”
We left within fifteen minutes.
The sunrise turned the interstate pale gold.
Jeremy drove.
For most of the trip we did not speak.
Halfway to Nashville, I looked at him.
“What do you think she wanted to tell you twenty-two years ago?”
His hands tightened around the wheel.
“I don't know.”
“Guess.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Neither do I.”
He swallowed.
“Maybe the miscarriage had already happened.”
“That wouldn't make sense.”
“No.”
“Maybe the pregnancy wasn't viable.”
“Could be.”
“Maybe she wanted to tell you she was leaving.”
“She already had.”
I watched the road.
“Could the baby have survived?”
Jeremy’s head snapped toward me.
“What?”
“Keep your eyes forward.”
He did.
“Jill.”
“I’m asking because nobody tells the whole truth in this story.”
“She told me she miscarried.”
“You believed her.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever see medical records?”
“No.”
“Did anyone else confirm it?”
“No.”
His breathing became uneven.
“Don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything. I’m asking whether we know.”
He stared ahead.
“No.”
It was the only honest answer.
We reached Vanderbilt shortly after seven.
The chapel trip had been delayed.
Lacey was still in Room 714.
When we entered, she looked worse.
Much worse.
Oxygen ran beneath her nose.
Her eyes were open but heavy.
She saw the photocopy in my hand before she saw my face.
“You found it.”
Jeremy stopped.
“You knew it was in the box.”
Lacey looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Did you put it there?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
She glanced toward me.
“Karen.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
“When?”
“Last week.”
Jeremy stared.
“Why?”
“Because I asked her to.”
“Why not just hand it to Jill?”
Lacey’s mouth curved faintly.
“Because I was still a coward.”
I pulled a chair close.
“What is the truth about the baby?”
Her expression changed.
The room became silent except for the oxygen.
Jeremy moved to the other side of the bed.
Lacey looked at him.
“I lied to you after I left.”
“About the miscarriage?”
“Yes.”
He went still.
I felt my stomach drop.
Lacey’s eyes filled.
“I did miscarry.”
Jeremy released a breath.
“But not when I told you.”
His face tightened again.
“When?”
“Later.”
“How much later?”
Lacey began crying.
“Almost three months.”
Jeremy gripped the rail.
“You were pregnant that whole time?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was angry.”
His eyes closed.
“You let me believe the baby was gone.”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?”
She looked at him.
“Because I wanted you to hurt the way I hurt.”
The words hung there.
Jeremy stepped away from the bed.
I watched twenty-two years of unresolved grief move through his face.
“You said there was something about the baby.”
Lacey nodded.
“What?”
She looked toward me.
Then back at him.
“The doctors found something before I miscarried.”
“What?”
“A genetic abnormality.”
Jeremy frowned.
“What kind?”
“One that made them recommend testing both parents.”
I felt a chill.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I left.”
Jeremy stared at her.
“So what was the secret?”
Lacey struggled for breath.
I almost told her to stop.
Then she whispered, “The doctor said the abnormality might not have come from you.”
Jeremy’s face went blank.
“What does that mean?”
Lacey closed her eyes.
“I had been with someone else.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Lacey’s Confession About the Pregnancy Shattered Jeremy’s Old Guilt, but the Identity of the Other Man Pulled My Family Deeper In
A Routine Question About My Marriage Sent Me Looking for One Paper I Never Thought I Would Need
Part 9 of 43
