Chapter 9 - Leah’s Father Had Not Become The Man Everyone Argued About
Leah called me the next morning.
Not Daniel.
Me.
“I need to tell you something before Daniel turns it into another version.”
I almost smiled.
“Coffee?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“Walk.”
We met at a public park near the school.
Mia was with a neighbor.
Sophie was in class.
No children between us.
Leah walked fast.
I matched her.
“You think Walter kept me from a good father.”
“I don't know what to think.”
“Neither did I.”
She shoved her hands into her coat pockets.
“I saw Michael.”
“After you left?”
“Six months later.”
I looked at her.
“You found him.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Called every number Walter had hidden.”
There was no pride in it.
“What happened?”
Leah looked ahead.
“He was sober.”
“For how long?”
“Ten months.”
“He stayed sober?”
She laughed quietly.
“No.”
That complicated the old family myth immediately.
“He was funny,” she said. “Embarrassing. Sorry. Defensive. He cried when he saw me, then spent the next hour explaining why everything wasn't his fault.”
I knew the type.
“Did you stay with him?”
“Three days.”
“Then?”
“He borrowed money.”
I looked at her.
She shrugged.
“Walter would've loved that part.”
“Did he know?”
“No.”
“Daniel?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I didn't want them being right.”
That was the first time Leah implicated herself.
She continued.
“I saw Michael off and on for four years.”
“Did it get better?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then worse?”
“Sometimes.”
“What happened?”
“He died when I was twenty-four.”
No melodrama in the delivery.
Time had already done most of its work.
“Did you forgive him?”
Leah gave me a look.
“That's a very expensive word.”
“Sorry.”
She nodded.
“We had coffee. Fights. Two decent Christmases. One terrible Thanksgiving.”
That sounded more real than forgiveness.
Then:
“I don't tell you this to make Walter reasonable.”
“I know.”
“He was afraid Michael would disappoint me.”
“He did.”
“Yes.”
She stopped walking.
“He still had no right to keep the door locked.”
I nodded.
Leah looked toward the playground.
“Daniel knew that before Walter did.”
“And still asked Walter to wait.”
“Yes.”
“Why tell me now?”
She looked at me.
“Because if you only hear the version where Daniel stole my chance at a wonderful father, you'll hate him cleanly.”
I stared.
“You don't want that?”
“I don't care how you feel about your husband.”
Then, after a beat:
“I care that Mia doesn't inherit a cartoon.”
That line stayed.
We started walking again.
“Did Daniel know you were seeing Michael?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I wanted Daniel to wonder.”
I looked at her.
She didn't pretend otherwise.
“I wanted him to imagine I had found some perfect life without them.”
“Did he?”
“Apparently.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I punished him too.”
That did not balance anything.
It did make the family less simple.
“What about Walter?”
“He wrote every birthday.”
“You answered?”
“No.”
“Daniel?”
“Three times in twenty years.”
“Why start again?”
Leah looked tired.
“Mia found a picture.”
“What picture?”
“Me and Daniel at seventeen.”
She laughed softly.
“We were wearing matching Hawthorne sweatshirts and pretending we didn't hate each other.”
Mia asked who he was.
Leah said:
“My brother.”
Then had to explain why her brother had never met her daughter.
“I realized I had built my own erased room.”
She looked at me.
“So I emailed him.”
“One meeting.”
“One.”
“Why did you agree to Sophie?”
“Because Mia asked if Daniel had kids.”
Leah paused.
“And because I wanted to see what happened if she met one Carter who had nothing to do with the old story.”
I thought about Sophie on the alley pavement.
She had given Mia half her lunch.
Then I arrived and threw it away.
Leah said:
“Yesterday wasn't the first time one of us turned a child into evidence.”
I looked at her.
“Daniel.”
“Walter.”
“Michael.”
Leah shook her head.
“Me too.”
She had wanted Mia’s easy affection for Sophie to prove family could be harmless now.
None of us had been clean.
Then she added:
“But somebody sent that message.”
The alley.
WAIT BEHIND THE GYM.
“I know.”
Leah stopped.
“Eric says he didn't.”
Daniel had said Eric knew.
“Who is Eric?”
May you like
Leah looked back toward Hawthorne.
“The man who told me about the letters the first time.”
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