Chapter 5 - WHY MARIAN NEEDED ME GONE
“Baby?”
Ethan repeated the word as though it belonged to a language he no longer understood.
Graham closed his eyes.
Victoria touched his shoulder.
“Dad, what are you trying to say?”
His breathing had become uneven.
The nurse stepped closer.
“That’s enough for tonight.”
Richard nodded.
No one argued.
Graham was wheeled back toward his room.
Before disappearing around the corner, he looked at me again.
There was apology in his face.
But apology could not give Noah back his first six birthdays.
We returned to Richard’s home because none of us were ready to separate with the question hanging between us.
Noah fell asleep on Richard’s sofa with a dinosaur book open across his chest.
Ethan stood several feet away watching him.
“He likes the green ones,” I said quietly.
Ethan looked at me.
“What?”
“Dinosaurs. Green ones.”
It was a ridiculous thing to say.
His eyes filled anyway.
“What’s his favorite?”
“Stegosaurus.”
“Food?”
“Pancakes.”
“School subject?”
“He’s six.”
“Right.”
He looked ashamed.
“I don’t know what six-year-olds have.”
“Mostly opinions.”
That almost made him smile.
Then Richard entered carrying a framed photograph.
Marian stood in a Christmas living room seven years earlier.
Ethan beside her.
Me beside him.
I was wearing the gold bracelet.
Richard looked at it.
“Your mother liked you, Anna.”
I gave a small, bitter laugh.
“She had an unusual way of showing it.”
“No.”
Richard’s expression tightened.
“I think she did like you.”
“That makes this better?”
“It may explain why I never saw what was happening.”
Ethan turned.
“Dad.”
Richard sat down.
“Your mother was terrified that year.”
He looked at the photograph.
“The Lakes plant was thirty-six hours from missing payroll. If employees walked, lenders would call other debts. The company could have collapsed.”
“And Anna?”
“I didn’t know about the account.”
“You believed she stole.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Marian told me the evidence was undeniable.”
I stared at him.
“You never asked me.”
Richard looked at me.
“No.”
The honesty hurt.
“I believed my wife.”
I appreciated that he did not dress it up.
Ethan paced toward the window.
“What does the pregnancy have to do with the plant?”
Richard was quiet too long.
Ethan turned.
“What aren’t you saying?”
“Your mother believed you were going to leave Blackwood Industries.”
Ethan stopped.
“What?”
“She thought you wanted to move to Seattle with Anna.”
I remembered.
Ethan and I had talked about it.
Not decided.
Talked.
A technology company had offered him a position.
He had wanted a life where every dinner was not a board meeting.
I had wanted a life where loving Ethan did not mean being evaluated by his family.
“How did she know?” I asked.
Richard looked ashamed again.
“I told her.”
Ethan stared at him.
“Why?”
“You were my son. I was worried.”
“No. You were worried about Blackwood.”
Richard did not deny it.
“Both.”
Something shifted inside me.
This was larger than one cruel mother.
The entire family had treated Ethan’s life like company property.
Marian had simply gone further.
Richard continued.
“She said if you left during the Lakes crisis, lenders would panic.”
Ethan whispered, “So she made Anna leave instead.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“Yes, we do.”
“No.”
Richard’s voice strengthened.
“We know Graham used Anna’s name. We know Marian knew. We know letters were intercepted. We still do not know exactly what she ordered.”
I hated him for being technically right.
Ethan looked toward Noah.
“He would’ve been enough.”
“What?” I asked.
He turned to me.
“If I’d known.”
His voice cracked.
“If I had known you were pregnant, Seattle wouldn’t have mattered. Blackwood wouldn’t have mattered. I would’ve found you.”
I believed him.
That was the worst part.
Richard suddenly looked toward the hall.
“Marian’s clothes.”
Ethan frowned.
“What about them?”
“After she died, I couldn’t clear her dressing room.”
He looked embarrassed by the admission.
“Most of it is still at the old house.”
“So?”
“There was a navy cashmere coat.”
My heart shifted.
Marian had worn that coat the last day I tried to see Ethan.
I remembered standing in Blackwood Tower’s lobby while security told me Ethan was unavailable.
Then Marian came down.
She had looked tired.
She had told me Ethan did not want to speak to me.
I had handed her an envelope.
One of the missing three.
“Richard.”
My voice went thin.
“I gave Marian a letter.”
He stared at me.
“When?”
“Two weeks before Noah was born.”
Ethan’s face changed.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I needed you to know before the baby came.”
I remembered Marian accepting the envelope.
Her gloves.
The navy coat.
Her quiet voice.
I’ll make sure Ethan receives it.
I had believed her because part of me still wanted to believe someone in that family had a conscience.
An hour later, we were inside the old Blackwood house.
Richard led us upstairs.
Marian’s dressing room had remained nearly untouched.
Not shrine-like.
Just unfinished.
A room grief had closed the door on.
The navy coat hung at the back of a wardrobe.
I recognized it immediately.
Richard removed it.
He checked both outer pockets.
Empty.
Ethan ran his hand along the lining.
Then he stopped.
“There’s something here.”
The inner pocket had been partially sewn shut.
Richard found scissors.
Ethan cut one thread.
A folded envelope slid into his hand.
My handwriting.
His name.
Ethan sat down hard on the edge of a chair.
I could not move.
He opened it.
A small hospital photograph fell out.
Not an ultrasound.
Noah.
Newborn.
Wrapped in a striped blanket.
I had mailed the letter after Noah arrived.
That meant this was not the letter I remembered giving Marian.
It was another.
The tenth.
Ethan stared at his son’s newborn face.
Then he read.
His lips moved silently.
Finally he handed it to me.
Ethan,
His name is Noah James Bennett.
He was born Tuesday at 3:17 in the morning.
He has your eyebrows.
I don’t know if you hate me.
I don’t know what they told you.
But please don’t hate him for something you think I did.
I will be at Union Station Friday at six.
If there is even one part of you that remembers who I was before all this, please come.
Anna.
A train ticket was folded beneath the page.
Chicago to Milwaukee.
Friday.
6:40 p.m.
I remembered sitting beneath the station clock until 9:00.
Holding Noah.
Waiting.
Ethan looked at the ticket.
His face drained of color.
“I wasn’t in Chicago that Friday.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“My mother sent me to New York Thursday morning.”
Richard slowly sat down.
Ethan looked at him.
“She told me there was a financing emergency.”
Richard whispered, “There wasn’t.”
Ethan’s eyes moved back to Marian’s coat.
“She knew exactly when Anna expected me.”
Nobody spoke.
The lie was no longer passive.
Marian had not merely hidden my letters.
She had moved Ethan out of the city on the one night I told him exactly where to find his son.
And Richard suddenly looked sick.
“Oh, God.”
Ethan turned.
“What?”
Richard stared at the newborn photograph.
“Your mother told me something the next morning.”
“What?”
May you like
Richard’s voice became rough.
“She said Anna had finally admitted taking the money.”
