Chapter 2 - The Story Everyone Had Agreed to Believe
Greer carried Fletcher upstairs before Sabine could stop her.
The little boy shook against her shoulder as she took him into the bathroom connected to his bedroom.
“I’m gonna clean your shirt, okay?”
He nodded without lifting his head.
Greer wet a washcloth and carefully wiped strawberry frosting from his legs.
Nothing had entered his mouth.
There was no rash.
No swelling.
No breathing problem.
Just a frightened three-year-old trying to catch his breath.
Greer had heard Fletcher say strawberries made him sick before.
Sabine had always called it pickiness.
That explanation had seemed possible until Greer saw the force behind the fork.
“Does she do that a lot?” Greer asked.
Fletcher stared at the dinosaur towel hanging beside the sink.
“She gets mad when food wins.”
Greer stopped wiping.
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged.
It was the kind of phrase a small child repeated without understanding.
Downstairs, something slammed.
Sabine shouted Greer’s name.
Greer changed Fletcher into pajamas and sat him on the bedroom rug with his wooden train set.
Then she closed the door behind her and went downstairs.
Sabine had already removed the overturned chair.
She stood at the kitchen island holding an ice pack against her cheek.
“You assaulted me in my own house.”
“You had a fork in his face.”
“I was feeding him.”
“He was begging you to stop.”
Sabine’s jaw tightened.
“You don’t get to come home from college once every few weekends and explain parenting to me.”
The accusation landed because it contained enough truth to hurt.
Greer had left for college two years earlier.
She called Fletcher almost every night.
She came home when she could.
But she had also built a life forty-five minutes away, while Sabine handled preschool drop-offs, fevers, dentist appointments, laundry, tantrums and bedtime.
Sabine had earned some things.
Greer knew that.
It was why she had ignored moments that bothered her.
The correction whenever Fletcher called Sabine “Aunt Sabine.”
The way Sabine insisted preschool teachers call her his mother.
The Christmas card that read SABINE & HER SON FLETCHER.
The explanation had always been the same.
“He needs stability.”
Greer’s mother, Holly, had died six weeks after Fletcher’s birth from complications related to postpartum cardiomyopathy.
Greer had been seventeen.
Fletcher’s father, according to Sabine, had vanished before Fletcher was born.
Sabine—Holly’s older sister—had petitioned for guardianship.
Greer’s own father, Rick, was not Fletcher’s biological father and had no legal claim to him.
Everyone had told Greer that living with Sabine was the sensible answer.
She had believed them.
Mostly.
“You said his father didn’t want him,” Greer said now.
Sabine lowered the ice pack.
“What does that have to do with today?”
Greer felt something inside her sharpen.
“I didn’t mention his father.”
For half a second, Sabine’s eyes moved toward the mudroom.
Then back.
Greer followed the glance.
A white plastic trash bag sat beside the back door, apparently waiting to be carried outside.
Something bright yellow showed through a tear in the plastic.
Greer walked toward it.
“Don’t,” Sabine said.
That one word was enough.
Greer opened the bag.
Inside were used paper towels, birthday decorations, food packaging and a torn padded mailing envelope.
She pulled it free.
The sender’s name had been ripped away.
The address remained.
FLETCHER HARROW
C/O SABINE HARROW
But beneath it, written in blue ink by hand, were four words.
For Fletcher. Love, Eli.
Greer looked at Sabine.
May you like
“Who is Eli?”
Sabine did not answer quickly enough.
