Chapter 2 - The Woman Andrew Told Me to Find
Seven days after I buried my husband, his father put his hand on my thirteen-year-old son.
That was the moment grief stopped being the worst thing I had to survive.
“Don’t ever touch my son again.”
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
Maybe that was why Patrick Callahan finally stopped smiling.
Rain poured through the wrought-iron gate of the Callahan estate, soaking the shoulders of my camel-colored coat and running down the cream dress underneath. My eleven-month-old daughter, Grace, was pressed against my chest beneath the coat, crying in exhausted little bursts. Behind me stood the rest of my children—Benjamin, thirteen; Olivia, eleven; Hannah, nine; Caleb, seven; and Sophie, four.
Six children.
Six pieces of Andrew.
And every one of them was shivering.
Benjamin’s cheek had already begun turning red where Patrick had struck him.
My son stared at his grandfather with the stunned expression of a boy who had spent his whole life believing grown men were supposed to protect children.
Patrick pointed through the gate toward the road.
“Take your family and leave.”
“My family?” I repeated.
He straightened the cuffs of his expensive charcoal coat.
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Behind him, Margaret Callahan stood beneath the stone awning of the massive house where Andrew and I had raised our children for nearly eleven years.
She hadn’t even bothered with an umbrella.
Why would she?
She was dry.
We were the ones being thrown into the storm.
Margaret looked at my children as if they were strangers who had wandered onto her property.
“This has gone on long enough, Cynthia.”
“My husband has been dead for seven days.”
“And my son has been dead for seven days,” she snapped. “Do you think you’re the only one grieving?”
The cruelty of the question almost made me laugh.
Not because it was funny.
Because I had spent the previous week watching Margaret perform grief for everyone who came near her.
At Andrew’s funeral, she had collapsed against Patrick’s shoulder when cameras were nearby. She had accepted condolences as if she had been Andrew’s only family. She had corrected the florist because the lilies weren’t expensive enough.
She had barely spoken to her grandchildren.
When Sophie tried to hold her hand beside the grave, Margaret had pulled away and said, “Not now.”
And now she was standing behind a locked gate while her grandchildren stood in freezing rain.
Two black trash bags sat beside my feet.
That was all Patrick and Margaret had given us.
Two bags.
Inside were a few clothes, some diapers, three stuffed animals, Benjamin’s school hoodie, and a pair of Olivia’s sneakers.
Everything else was still inside.
Birth certificates.
Family photographs.
Andrew’s watch collection.
The quilts my mother had made before she died.
Children’s medication.
Schoolbooks.
Baby formula.
The urn containing the ashes of the dog Andrew had owned since college.
Our life was inside that house.
Patrick had changed the locks while I was at Grace’s pediatric appointment.
When we returned, a security guard blocked the driveway.
Then Patrick came outside.
“Dad,” Benjamin had said automatically.
He still called his grandfather that sometimes.
Patrick hadn’t even looked ashamed.
“The arrangement has changed.”
“What arrangement?” I asked.
“The one where my son allowed you to live here.”
My stomach had dropped.
“Andrew didn’t ‘allow’ me to live here. This is our family home.”
Patrick laughed.
Even now, I could still hear the sound over the rain.
“Family home?”
Then he looked at Benjamin.
“You children need to understand something. Callahan property stays with Callahans.”
Benjamin stepped forward.
“We are Callahans.”
Patrick’s expression hardened.
“Not in the way that matters.”
Benjamin understood before I did.
Maybe because children recognize rejection faster than adults.
His jaw tightened.
“You mean because Mom isn’t from your family.”
“I mean blood matters.”
“I’m Andrew’s son.”
Patrick’s face twisted.
Then came the words I would remember for the rest of my life.
“Only real blood belongs here.”
Benjamin stepped closer.
“You don’t get to say Dad wasn’t my father.”
Patrick slapped him.
The sound was small compared with the thunder.
But every child froze.
Olivia screamed.
Hannah grabbed Sophie.
Caleb began crying.
And something inside me that had been numb since Andrew died suddenly came alive.
I moved between them.
“Don’t ever touch my son again.”
Patrick looked startled.
Not frightened.
Not yet.
Just surprised.
For eleven years, I had tried to be respectful.
I had swallowed Margaret’s little insults about my childhood neighborhood.
I had endured Patrick asking whether I was “comfortable around people with money.”
I had listened while relatives joked that Andrew had “married for love instead of pedigree.”
I had smiled at dinner tables where people assumed I should be grateful Andrew had chosen me.
Andrew hated it.
Many nights, after everyone went home, he would pull me close and apologize for people he couldn’t control.
“You belong with me,” he always said.
But Andrew wasn’t standing beside me anymore.
That was what Patrick and Margaret were counting on.
Patrick leaned closer.
“What are you going to do, Cynthia?”
I stared at him.
He lowered his voice.
“Sue me?”
Margaret smiled.
Patrick continued.
“With what money?”
I said nothing.
“That loose change you had when Andrew pulled you out of that poor neighborhood?”
My face burned.
Benjamin moved again, but I grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
“Mom—”
“No.”
My children had already lost their father.
I would not let them lose their future because a thirteen-year-old boy was baited into fighting an old man.
Margaret descended two steps.
Her eyes dropped toward my left hand.
For the first time, I noticed what she was looking at.
My sapphire ring.
It wasn’t my wedding ring.
I had removed that two nights after Andrew’s funeral because seeing it made my chest hurt.
The sapphire ring was older.
Vintage.
Oval blue stone surrounded by tiny diamonds.
Andrew had given it to me on our tenth anniversary.
He told me it once belonged to his grandmother.
“You’re the person I want carrying our family forward,” he had said.
Margaret stopped in front of me.
“That belongs to the Callahans.”
“No,” I said. “Andrew gave it to me.”
“He was sentimental.”
“So?”
“So he made mistakes.”
Her fingers suddenly closed around my hand.
I jerked backward.
“Margaret.”
She pulled at the ring.
“Take your hands off me.”
“It belongs to my family.”
“It belongs to me.”
She twisted it over my knuckle.
Pain shot through my finger.
The ring slipped free.
Margaret stepped backward and dropped it into her coat pocket.
Olivia gasped.
“Grandma!”
Margaret looked at her.
“Don’t call me that while you’re behaving like this.”
Olivia began crying.
That hurt more than anything Margaret had done to me.
I stared at the woman who had attended every one of Olivia’s birthday parties since she was born.
“You stole my ring.”
Patrick snorted.
“Call the police.”
Margaret’s mouth curved.
“I’ll tell them you’re trespassing and causing trouble.”
Behind the mansion windows, faces moved.
Patrick’s brother.
Margaret’s sister.
Two cousins.
Neighbors.
People who had eaten food at my table.
People whose children had slept over with mine.
Nobody came outside.
Not one.
That was when I understood something Andrew had tried to tell me for years.
Wealth did not make people powerful.
Sometimes it only gave cowards a prettier place to hide.
I picked up one trash bag.
Benjamin grabbed the other.
“Mom,” Hannah whispered, “where are we going?”
I looked toward the road.
I had no answer.
Andrew handled most of our major finances.
Not because he controlled me.
Because after Grace was born, I had taken time away from my interior design work to focus on the children. I had my own savings, but it wasn’t enough to suddenly house seven people in Greenwich.
My closest friend lived two states away.
My parents were gone.
And the house Patrick had just locked us out of was scheduled to be demolished in forty-eight hours.
At least, that was what Patrick had told the contractors.
He planned to replace it with a “modern family residence.”
I had found the demolition notice taped inside the gate that afternoon.
Forty-eight hours.
Andrew’s study.
The children’s height marks beside the pantry.
Grace’s nursery.
Everything could disappear.
“Come on,” I told my children.
We walked toward the black sedan Andrew had bought shortly before Grace was born.
It was still parked on the roadside because the security guard wouldn’t allow me onto the property.
The rain made everything shine.
Sophie slipped once.
Benjamin caught her.
I opened the rear door.
“Everyone inside.”
“What about you?” Benjamin asked.
“I’m coming.”
I buckled Grace into her car seat.
Then I reached into the diaper bag looking for a dry blanket.
My fingers touched paper.
At first, I ignored it.
Then I saw the color.
Yellow.
My entire body went still.
Andrew.
Three weeks before his death, he had placed that folder in Grace’s diaper bag while we were sitting in the kitchen after midnight.
He had been tired.
More tired than I realized then.
The cancer had moved quickly.
We both knew we were running out of time, but neither of us said it.
He closed my hand over the zipper.
“Don’t open it yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if everything goes the way it should, you’ll never need to.”
I remember trying to joke.
“That sounds ominous.”
Andrew didn’t smile.
“If my parents ever try to force you or the kids out, find Rebecca Stone.”
“Who?”
“Attorney.”
“For what?”
He kissed my forehead.
“Promise me you’ll listen.”
I hated those conversations because they sounded like goodbye.
“Andrew—”
“Promise me.”
I promised.
Then he gave me another instruction.
“Only open the folder when that day comes.”
The day.
Standing in the freezing rain seven days after his funeral, I realized the day had come.
I pulled the folder halfway out.
Benjamin saw it.
“What is that?”
“I’m not sure.”
Then Patrick called from behind me.
“You forgot something.”
I turned.
He tossed a framed family photograph onto the wet pavement.
The glass shattered.
It was the picture we had taken the Christmas Grace was born.
Andrew was sitting in the center.
All six children surrounding him.
I was beside him.
Patrick laughed.
“No need leaving your garbage here.”
Benjamin started toward him.
I caught his arm.
Again.
But this time I didn’t turn away.
I looked at Patrick.
Then at Margaret.
Then at the house.
Something Andrew once told me came back with absolute clarity.
Never confuse the person holding the keys with the person who owns the door.
I slowly closed the diaper bag.
“Patrick.”
“What?”
“Before you start choosing new furniture, you should check who really owns this house.”
His smile stayed for half a second.
Then disappeared.
Margaret’s fingers moved instinctively toward the pocket holding my ring.
I continued.
“And you might want to look at the camera Andrew installed above the gate.”
Margaret’s face changed.
Patrick glanced upward.
There it was.
Small.
Dark.
Almost invisible beneath the stone arch.
Pointed directly toward us.
The rain drummed against the roof of my car.
For the first time that night, nobody spoke.
Patrick finally said, “What are you talking about?”
I opened the driver’s door.
“I don’t know yet.”
That was the truth.
“But apparently Andrew did.”
I got inside.
Benjamin climbed into the passenger seat.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Where are we going?”
I stared through the windshield at the yellow folder sitting between us.
“To find Rebecca Stone.”
Behind us, Patrick was already looking up at the camera.
Margaret was pulling out her phone.
I started the engine.
And as we drove away from the only home my children had ever known, I didn’t know whether Andrew had left me enough to save us.
But I knew one thing.
My husband had expected this.
May you like
And whatever was inside that yellow folder had just terrified his parents.
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