Chapter 5 - The Truth Sabine Had Been Protecting
Greer did not confront Sabine.
Denise had told her not to.
Instead, she asked Dana to meet her at a coffee shop in Prairie Village the next morning.
Dana arrived carrying nothing.
That disappointed Greer at first.
She had imagined evidence.
A letter.
A photograph.
Something undeniable.
Instead Dana gave her memory.
Sometimes memory was worse.
“Your mom was scared before Fletcher was born,” Dana said.
“Of Eli?”
“Of everything.”
Dana wrapped both hands around her coffee cup.
“Holly knew she was sick before she told you how sick. She knew there was a chance she wouldn’t be around long enough to make sure Fletcher was okay.”
Greer swallowed.
“She should’ve told me.”
“You were seventeen.”
“I was her daughter.”
“You were still seventeen.”
It sounded painfully similar to something Rick would say.
Dana continued.
“She asked Sabine to help if something happened.”
“To raise Fletcher?”
“To keep him stable.”
Greer waited.
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
Dana’s eyes dropped.
“One night Holly told Sabine, ‘Don’t let Eli take him until you know he’s steady.’”
Greer sat back.
There it was.
The sentence Sabine had built three years of authority around.
“Until.”
Dana nodded.
“She said until.”
“Did Sabine hear it that way?”
“At the time? Probably.”
Greer looked through the café window at people walking dogs along the sidewalk.
“So maybe Sabine thought she was protecting him.”
“I think she did.”
“Then why lie?”
Dana’s face tightened.
“Because eventually protection became something else.”
She told Greer what she had not wanted to say on the phone.
Six months after Holly died, Eli contacted Dana.
He had completed another recovery program, was working again and wanted to know how to begin seeing Fletcher legally.
Dana told him to contact Sabine.
He did.
Three months later, Dana asked what happened.
Eli said Fletcher’s family wanted no contact.
“He said Sabine told him even you didn’t want him around,” Dana said.
Greer’s head came up.
“Me?”
Dana nodded.
“He said he’d gotten a message from you.”
“I never spoke to him.”
“I know that now.”
Greer’s skin went cold.
“What did the message say?”
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“Did you see it?”
“No.”
“Then how do we know—”
“We don’t.”
Dana leaned forward.
“That’s the point. You need to talk to him.”
Greer returned to Sabine’s house that evening because she was still listed as an authorized family visitor.
Sabine let her inside only after Greer promised there would be no argument.
Fletcher ran toward her in dinosaur socks.
Greer crouched and hugged him.
Sabine watched from the kitchen.
For twenty quiet minutes, Greer built a wooden train track with Fletcher on the living-room rug.
Then Fletcher pushed a red engine toward her.
“Daddy train.”
Greer’s hand stopped.
“What?”
Fletcher pointed toward a small cardboard box on a high bookshelf.
“That man sends those.”
Sabine appeared in the doorway.
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Greer slowly stood.
She did not touch the box.
She did not accuse Sabine.
She remembered Denise.
Boring.
Facts.
“Who sends what?”
Sabine’s voice sharpened.
“Greer.”
Fletcher answered anyway.
“The guitar man.”
Greer looked at Sabine.
Sabine looked back.
Neither woman moved.
And Greer finally understood the most frightening possibility.
May you like
Eli Ward might not be a secret from Fletcher at all.
Only from everyone who could help him.
