Chapter 2 - The Father Derek Said Had Stopped Caring
Thomas was not alone.
Claire learned that only after Derek opened the basement door.
Thomas stood in the hallway with Claire’s older cousin Melissa, a nurse who lived fifteen minutes away.
Thomas took one look at Claire sitting drenched inside the laundry basin.
Everything in his face changed.
Derek immediately started talking.
“She had another episode.”
Thomas did not answer him.
He walked past Derek.
“Claire?”
She tried to stand.
Her knees buckled.
Melissa reached her first.
Derek moved forward.
Thomas blocked him.
“Don’t touch her.”
“This is my house.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“She’s my wife.”
Claire looked from one man to the other.
For years, Derek had told her Thomas wanted nothing to do with her.
Now her father was kneeling in filthy water to help her out of the basin.
Melissa wrapped a blanket around Claire.
Thomas looked at the crossbar.
The restraints.
The wet floor.
Then at Derek.
“What happened?”
Claire opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Derek answered for her.
“She’s been unstable for months.”
Thomas ignored him.
“Claire.”
She finally whispered, “He did it.”
Derek laughed once.
“Of course she says that.”
Thomas’s eyes hardened.
But he did not hit him.
That surprised Claire.
Old Thomas would have.
Instead he pulled out his phone and said, “Melissa, take her upstairs.”
Derek stepped forward.
“She’s not going anywhere.”
Thomas looked at him.
“She decides that.”
Claire heard those words clearly.
She decides.
Nobody had said that to her in a long time.
Upstairs, Melissa examined Claire as carefully as she could before taking her for medical care.
No life-threatening injury was obvious.
But Claire was exhausted, dehydrated and terrified.
Thomas stayed nearby.
Derek remained downstairs until officers responding to Thomas’s earlier request arrived to document the situation and separate everyone.
There was no dramatic arrest based on one sentence.
Questions came first.
Photographs.
Statements.
Medical examination.
Claire hated every minute of it.
Still, she kept talking.
Then, in the emergency department, she finally asked the question that had been burning inside her.
“Why were you there?”
Thomas looked at her.
“I got your letter.”
Claire frowned.
“What letter?”
“The one you mailed last week.”
Her face went blank.
“I didn’t mail you anything.”
Thomas slowly reached inside his coat.
He removed an envelope.
Claire recognized her own handwriting.
Her own name.
Her own house.
But the words inside were not hers.
Dad, I was wrong. I need help. Come Wednesday night after eight. Don’t call first.
Claire stared at it.
“I didn’t write that.”
Thomas looked just as confused.
Then Melissa said quietly, “Who knew you two weren’t speaking?”
Claire turned toward the hospital window.
Derek did.
May you like
Derek knew exactly how badly she wanted her father back.
And somebody had used that wound to bring Thomas to the house at the precise moment Claire needed him most.
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