Chapter 1 - THE PHOTOGRAPH VIVIAN CUT IN FRONT OF HERVivian did not tear the photograph because she lost her temper.
She brought scissors.
That was what Daniel Bennett understood later.
Six-year-old Maisie sat on the edge of the cream upholstered bed in the upstairs guest room, clutching the only photograph she believed she had left of her biological mother.
Vivian stood over her in a burgundy silk dress.
Perfect hair.
Perfect makeup.
Silver scissors already open in her hand.
“Give it to me.”
Maisie shook her head.
“No.”
Vivian smiled.
Not warmly.
“Your father doesn’t like you getting worked up over old things.”
“It’s Mommy.”
“Maisie.”
The little girl squeezed the photograph against her chest.
Vivian reached down, snatched it from her, and sliced straight through the middle.
Maisie screamed.
One half showed Maisie as a toddler.
The other showed a red-haired woman kneeling beside her, laughing into the camera.
Vivian dropped both pieces into the child’s lap.
“Keep crying,” she said. “Your father believes me, not you.”
Maisie’s shoulders shook.
She grabbed the half containing her mother.
Vivian immediately reached for it again.
Maisie pulled away.
“She burns Mommy’s letters when you leave!”
Vivian froze.
The bedroom doorway was behind her.
Daniel stood there.
Navy suit.
Tie loosened.
Briefcase still in one hand.
He had returned from Charlotte three hours early because his last meeting was canceled.
For several seconds he could not understand what he was seeing.
Then he saw the scissors.
The photograph.
His daughter’s face.
“Vivian?”
She turned too quickly.
“Daniel. She’s having another episode.”
Maisie started crying harder.
“She’s lying!”
Vivian moved toward the bed.
Daniel stepped between them.
“What letters?”
“There are no letters.”
Maisie pointed beneath the bed.
Vivian’s expression changed.
Only for an instant.
Then she pushed something backward with the heel of her shoe.
Daniel saw it.
A small wooden box.
“Don’t,” Vivian said.
He looked at her.
“What?”
“That box is full of things that trigger her. Her therapist said—”
“Her therapist told you to hide things under our bed?”
Vivian said nothing.
Daniel crouched.
Pulled the box out.
The loose lid caught on the carpet and opened.
Envelopes spilled across the floor.
Dozens.
Some yellowed slightly.
Some new.
Most unopened.
All addressed in the same handwriting.
Maisie Bennett.
Daniel picked one up.
Then another.
Birthday cards.
Christmas envelopes.
A thick letter marked:
For when she asks why I’m gone.
His hands began shaking.
Maisie slid off the bed and ran into him.
Daniel lifted her against his chest.
“Daddy, she burns them.”
He looked at Vivian.
“Whose are these?”
Vivian’s face hardened.
“You know whose.”
Daniel stared.
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
“My wife is dead.”
Vivian said nothing.
Daniel picked up the newest envelope.
The postmark was six days old.
His stomach dropped.
Then he saw the return address.
Claire Maddox.
Asheville, North Carolina.
Claire had been Maisie’s mother.
Daniel’s former wife.
The woman Vivian told him had died nineteen months earlier.
His fingers went numb.
He turned the envelope over.
On the back, beneath his own name, someone had handwritten a second recipient.
Daniel Bennett
cc: Miriam Sloan, Esq.
Daniel knew that name.
Miriam Sloan was a Charlotte family-law attorney.
A very good one.
He looked at Vivian.
“You told me her mother was dead.”
Vivian’s lips parted.
For the first time since Daniel had known her, she appeared to have no prepared answer.
May you like
And Daniel realized the letters were not the beginning of the lie.
They were evidence that somebody had been maintaining it.
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