Chapter 5 - Staying With Rachel And New Discoveries
Rachel took me home with her three days later.
Not to my house.
To hers.
She lived in a small yellow bungalow at the edge of town with a garden she continually claimed she would maintain properly “next year.”
Her spare room still contained boxes from when she had moved in two years earlier.
By sunset, she had transformed it.
Fresh sheets.
A lamp beside the bed.
A chair near the window.
A glass pitcher of water.
On the dresser she placed Mom’s crossword book.
No inspirational signs.
No flowers.
No questions about what I planned to do next.
I loved her for all of it.
That evening we sat at her kitchen table eating baked potatoes.
“I owe you an apology,” I said.
Rachel pointed her fork at me.
“You already tried this.”
“I mean a real one.”
She waited.
“I believed things Daniel said about you.”
Her expression did not change.
“What things?”
“That you were jealous.”
She smiled faintly.
“I was jealous of your dishwasher.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. That thing had three racks.”
I almost laughed.
Then I continued.
“He said you didn’t respect my decisions. He said you wanted me to fail because you never liked him.”
Rachel set down her fork.
“I didn’t like him.”
“I know.”
“But I wanted to be wrong.”
I looked at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me more directly?”
“I did.”
“Not at the end.”
“No.”
“Why?”
She looked toward the dark window.
“Because every time I criticized him, you defended him more strongly. And after a while I realized I was helping him build a wall between us.”
I thought about all the conversations that ended with me saying, You don’t know him like I do.
Maybe that had been true.
Maybe none of us had known him.
Or maybe we had each known one carefully selected version.
“I should have kept calling,” Rachel said.
“You did.”
“Not enough.”
“Rachel.”
She looked at me.
“We can spend years deciding which one of us should have done something differently.”
Her eyes softened.
“That sounds like Mom.”
“It does.”
“She would be unbearable right now.”
“She would.”
“She’d move in.”
“She’d reorganize your kitchen.”
Rachel looked horrified.
“Fine. Some losses remain complicated.”
We laughed.
Quietly.
It felt strange.
Then necessary.
Two weeks later, Investigator Ruiz called.
Rachel was at work.
I was sitting at her dining table sorting mail when my phone rang.
“We found the documents from Daniel’s office,” Ruiz said.
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Were they signed?”
“There are several versions.”
“What does that mean?”
“One version has no signatures. Another has what appears to be yours.”
I stared at the wall.
“Appears?”
“It will be examined.”
I knew what she meant.
She was not going to tell me something was forged before the evidence established it.
“What else?”
“There’s correspondence between Daniel and a financial adviser concerning the trust property.”
“And my house?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“What did he say?”
Ruiz paused.
“There is an email where Daniel describes your house as marital property he expects to control.”
“Control?”
“That is the word used.”
The room felt suddenly too quiet.
“Was my name mentioned?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Another pause.
“He wrote that you were becoming increasingly dependent on him for financial decisions.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
Across the street, a man was washing his car.
Two houses down, a child rode a bicycle in slow circles while her father adjusted a helmet strap.
Ordinary life continued with almost offensive confidence.
“There’s something else,” Ruiz said.
I waited.
“Do you remember the name Evelyn Hart?”
“Yes.”
“We located her.”
I turned away from the window.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“About ninety miles north.”
I sat down again.
“Does she know what happened?”
“She knows we’re reviewing family financial records. She has agreed to speak with us.”
I thought of Mara’s letter.
The old bank statements.
The family story about an unstable aunt who had simply disappeared.
“Did she say anything about me?”
Ruiz hesitated.
“Yes.”
My heartbeat changed.
“How does she know me?”
“That is something she wants to explain herself.”
I frowned.
“She knows who I am?”
“She does.”
I waited for more.
Ruiz continued carefully.
“Claire, I don’t want you drawing conclusions from incomplete information.”
“Then give me complete information.”
“I can’t yet.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“What can you tell me?”
“She says she met your mother.”
I stopped breathing for a moment.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I don’t believe it is.”
“When?”
“We’re still establishing the timeline.”
“My mother never mentioned Daniel’s family.”
“I understand.”
“No, she would have.”
Ruiz remained quiet.
I thought of Mom’s books.
Her notes.
Her habit of keeping every important paper inside an old wooden recipe box.
Rachel had inherited the box.
I had not looked inside it since the funeral.
“Claire?”
May you like
“I need to call you back.”
I ended the call.
