Chapter 4 - The Phone Call I Should Have Made Years Earlier
I called Susan Danielson at 7:12 the next morning.
She answered on the third ring.
“Amanda?”
Her voice broke on my name.
I started crying before either of us said anything meaningful.
“Why did you stop calling Lucy?”
Silence.
Then:
“We didn’t.”
I sat down.
“What?”
“We stopped because you asked us to.”
“I never asked you that.”
Susan began breathing strangely.
Her husband, Robert, took the phone.
“Amanda, we got your email.”
“What email?”
He read part of it.
Lucy is finally bonding with Richard as her father. Continued reminders of Daniel are making that harder. Please respect our decision to create distance.
I could barely speak.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Around the exact time Daniel’s storage bins disappeared.
“Who sent it?”
“Your address.”
My personal email.
Or what appeared to be my personal email.
Robert forwarded it.
At first glance, it looked real.
My name.
My old profile photograph.
My usual signature line.
But the address contained one extra letter buried near the middle.
A look-alike account.
Someone had created an email address designed to resemble mine.
I felt cold.
Susan continued.
“We thought you hated us.”
“I thought you didn’t want Lucy.”
“Oh, God.”
That sentence broke both of us.
For two years, two sides of Lucy’s family had believed the other had chosen distance.
I called Marissa.
She told me not to access Richard’s devices, guess passwords, or start conducting my own amateur investigation.
Preserve what I had.
Let appropriate professionals handle the rest.
That afternoon, I emailed Richard one question.
Did you contact Susan and Robert pretending to be me?
His answer came fifteen minutes later.
I was trying to protect Lucy from confusion.
Not no.
I stared at the words.
He called immediately afterward.
I declined.
Then another message.
Daniel was gone. Someone had to help her build a real family.
I finally answered.
She already had one.
Richard replied:
That’s exactly the problem.
For the first time, he had said aloud what I was beginning to understand.
May you like
He had never wanted to join Lucy’s family.
He wanted to replace it.
