Chapter 11 - The Greenhouse
Isabella broke when I told her the letters were missing.
Not loudly.
That was still the part that destroyed me.
She folded inward.
Hands over her face.
Shoulders shaking.
No sound.
I sat beside her on the floor.
"We'll get them back."
She shook her head.
"She burned them."
"You don't know that."
"She said she would."
I wanted to promise again.
Instead, I said, "We're going to find out."
That night, Isabella disappeared from her room.
The alarm never sounded.
Maya woke me at 1:12.
"She's gone."
My blood turned to ice.
We searched the house.
Garage.
Garden.
Guest rooms.
Then I remembered the blue square in Isabella's drawing.
The greenhouse.
I ran through the rain without shoes.
She was inside, curled beneath Lauren's old potting table.
The missing fireproof box sat beside her.
I stopped.
"Isabella?"
She looked up.
"I found it."
"Where?"
"Behind Mom's rose cabinet."
I knelt in the wet dirt.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"I didn't want Beatriz to know."
"She's not here."
"She still knows things."
I pulled her close.
"Not forever."
Inside the box, Lauren's letters were untouched.
But there was something else.
A red notebook.
Isabella handed it to me.
"That's mine."
Every page held dates.
Short sentences.
Sometimes drawings.
March 4 - No dinner because I said Mom made better soup.
March 11 - Carried laundry three times because I asked to call Dad.
March 18 - Beatriz heard me tell Ms. Brooks I was tired.
March 19 - She knew.
April 2 - Had to scrub patio because I cried during piano.
April 10 - She said Dad likes easy people.
April 21 - She said if I tell Dad, he will think I am lying like Mom used to say liars do.
I stopped.
"Mom never said that."
"I know now."
My daughter had kept records because some part of her understood that memory might not be enough.
"Why hide it here?"
"Mom liked this room."
"You thought she'd protect it?"
Isabella nodded.
I had spent three years avoiding Lauren's greenhouse because it hurt me.
My daughter had turned it into the safest place she knew.
That realization hurt worse.
We sat there until the rain softened.
Then Isabella said, "There's one thing I didn't write."
"You don't have to tell me."
"I want to."
I waited.
"Beatriz said you knew about the work."
My chest tightened.
"She said you wanted me tougher."
I closed my eyes.
"I didn't."
"I know."
"How?"
She looked at me.
"Because when you saw my hands, your face looked scared."
That was the first moment I realized my daughter was beginning to believe me again.
Then she opened the back cover of the notebook.
A phone number was written there.
"What's this?"
"I heard Beatriz say it when she thought I was asleep."
I photographed the number and sent it to Leah.
Ten minutes later, she called.
"Grant, you need to sit down."
"Who is it?"
"It's a storage facility in Stamford."
"Under whose name?"
"Lauren Mercer."
May you like
My late wife's identity was being used by someone who had never met her.
