Chapter 6 - MEGAN DIDN’T ASK ME TO FORGIVE HER
I met Megan in Beth’s living room.
She walked with a cane.
That was the first thing I noticed.
The second was that my body knew her.
Not memory.
Something deeper.
She came through the doorway and I stood before I realized I was doing it.
Megan stopped.
Neither of us spoke.
Then she said:
“You still lean left when you’re nervous.”
I started crying.
I hated that.
I wanted to be composed.
Instead five years disappeared and didn’t disappear at all.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head immediately.
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“You were hurt.”
“I believed—”
“You had a brain injury.”
“I married Claire.”
That one made her look away.
“Yes.”
Silence.
I asked:
“Did I hurt you?”
Megan looked back at me.
“No.”
My knees almost gave out.
“Did Claire?”
Megan sat down.
Beth stayed near the kitchen but gave us distance.
Megan told me the story slowly.
Claire had been my friend for years.
She also handled scheduling and client communications at the small architecture firm where I worked.
Megan never liked how involved Claire remained in my life.
I thought she was insecure.
Claire insisted Megan was controlling.
Both women resented each other.
Nothing criminal.
Nothing dramatic.
Until the afternoon before the accident.
Megan discovered Claire had been forwarding selected private messages between us to herself through the office system.
Not intimate photographs.
Not blackmail.
Mostly arguments.
Relationship problems.
Things Claire had no business reading.
Megan confronted her.
Claire came to the townhouse that evening.
They argued at the top of the stairs.
Megan told Claire she would tell me everything and demand she stop working with me.
Claire grabbed her arm.
Megan pulled away.
Claire shoved her.
“One shove?” I asked.
“One.”
Megan looked down.
“I don’t think she meant for me to fall down the entire staircase.”
That distinction mattered.
Claire had done something violent.
The catastrophic consequence may not have been intended.
“What happened when I arrived?”
“You saw me at the bottom.”
My head started aching.
“You were screaming at Claire.”
A fragment returned.
CLAIRE, WHAT DID YOU DO?
I gripped the chair.
Megan continued.
“An ambulance came. Claire left before police finished talking to everyone.”
“And I followed?”
“You tried.”
I had been terrified Claire would disappear.
I drove toward the hospital because Megan had already been transported.
At an intersection, another driver struck me.
My last clear memory was apparently Claire’s face above Megan’s body.
Then my brain removed nearly eighteen months around it.
Including Sophie.
Including Megan.
Including why I was angry at Claire.
When I asked why Megan never came to see me after recovering, she looked wounded.
“We were told you didn’t want us.”
“By Claire.”
“And later by someone claiming to speak for your medical team.”
That part required investigation.
Megan did not know whether Claire personally wrote everything.
But Claire had positioned herself between us.
A gatekeeper.
One conversation at a time.
I looked at Megan.
“Why now?”
“Sophie started asking harder questions.”
Megan smiled sadly.
“She knows Beth as her everyday mom. She knows I’m her biological mom. And she knows you’re her father.”
My throat tightened.
“She wanted to know why you never came.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The gentlest truth I had.”
“What was that?”
“That you forgot after the accident.”
I thought of Sophie’s words.
Mommy said you forgot me after what happened to my other mommy.
Megan continued.
“I never told her Claire pushed me.”
I froze.
“Then who told Sophie someone put you in the hospital?”
Megan’s face changed.
“I don’t know.”
May you like
We both realized it at the same time.
Claire had.
