Chapter 15 - THE ORIGINAL
Ethan was outside with police.
I found him beside an ambulance.
“Give it to me.”
He knew immediately.
“Sarah—”
“The tape.”
He reached inside his coat.
There it was.
I slapped him.
The sound surprised both of us.
He did not move.
“You lied again.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the original contains something Thomas didn’t want you to hear.”
Thomas approached.
His face hardened when he saw the cassette.
“Ethan.”
I looked at my biological father.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Everybody stop protecting me.”
My voice cracked across the parking lot.
“I am thirty-five years old.”
Nobody spoke.
“Play it.”
Ethan found an officer’s recorder.
The tape began.
My grandfather.
Thomas.
Then a woman.
Not my mother.
Ethan’s mother, Caroline.
She was crying.
“Thomas, you have to choose.”
His voice answered.
“I can’t abandon Diane.”
“You have a son.”
“I know.”
“And now she has your child.”
Silence.
Then Caroline said:
“If you go back to her, I’ll tell Richard where you are.”
Ethan went rigid.
Thomas closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
Caroline had betrayed Thomas’s hiding place.
Not my grandfather.
Not Peter.
Ethan’s mother.
She had set the attempted murder in motion because she was afraid Thomas would leave her for Diane.
Ethan whispered, “My mother knew.”
Thomas said, “She regretted it.”
“She let me think you were dead.”
“Yes.”
Ethan walked away.
I followed.
He turned.
“Don’t.”
I stopped.
His eyes were wet.
“I spent my life hating a dead man for leaving me.”
“I know.”
“He was alive.”
“I know.”
“And my mother knew.”
There was nothing useful to say.
So I sat on the curb beside him.
After a minute, he sat too.
We didn’t touch.
For the first time since the wedding, there were no secrets between us.
At least that was what I believed.
Then Detective Morris walked over.
“Sarah?”
“Yes?”
“We searched Richard’s house.”
He handed me a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was a marriage certificate.
Diane Lane and Thomas Mercer.
Dated thirty-six years earlier.
May you like
My mother had never legally married Richard.
Which meant my entire childhood had been built on a marriage that did not exist.
