Chapter 12 - UNCLE THOMAS
Thomas Bennett answered from North Carolina.
Seventy-one.
Retired.
Richard's younger brother.
He sounded annoyed before Daniel finished the first sentence.
Then silent.
Then tired.
“Yes.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“You investigated Evelyn.”
“In 1996.”
“Why?”
“Richard asked me.”
Margaret sat across the room.
She could hear through speakerphone.
Thomas continued.
He found June.
Found the adoption filing.
Confirmed Margaret was the biological mother.
Did he tell Richard?
“Yes.”
Margaret whispered:
“No.”
Thomas heard.
“Margaret, stop.”
Everyone went still.
“When?”
Daniel asked.
“September 1996.”
Richard knew.
Twelve years before the trust.
Thirteen years before the letter claiming he had learned Evelyn's name yesterday.
Evelyn stared at the table.
“So both of them lied.”
Thomas corrected:
“Richard knew there was a daughter. He did not know where Evelyn was as an adult.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“No.”
Good.
Specific.
Why did Richard not confront Margaret?
He did.
Privately.
Margaret said she had no right to disturb the adoption.
Richard accepted that.
Partly.
Why?
Thomas's answer was not flattering.
“Your father had just entered negotiations to buy out his partners.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
Of course.
Family revelation postponed for business.
Richard told Thomas:
We will deal with this after closing.
They did not.
Then in 1997, Daniel's grandmother died.
1998, company expansion.
2001, health issue.
Life kept producing excellent reasons to postpone moral discomfort.
Thomas said:
“Richard asked again in 2008 because June contacted him.”
“So the 2009 letter saying he learned my name yesterday?”
Evelyn asked.
Thomas paused.
“He may have meant your current name.”
Technically possible.
Evelyn had been adopted as Evelyn Shaw.
Same first name.
Not convincing.
Then Thomas admitted:
“I helped draft the trust.”
“Did you tell Richard to contact me?”
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
“Not directly.”
“Why?”
“He believed Margaret needed to do it.”
Evelyn laughed.
“Of course.”
Another man outsourcing the hardest conversation to the person least likely to have it.
Thomas continued.
“I should have called you myself.”
“Yes.”
“I didn't.”
“Why?”
“Because you were not my daughter.”
Evelyn stared at the phone.
“That didn't stop you investigating me.”
Thomas went quiet.
Good.
Then he added something none of us expected.
“Richard did write to you before he died.”
Margaret looked up sharply.
Daniel said:
“We found the 2009 letter.”
“Not that one.”
Thomas's voice changed.
“2018.”
One year before Richard's death.
“What letter?”
“He gave it to Margaret.”
Everyone looked at her.
Margaret's face told us before her mouth did.
Evelyn stood.
“You had another letter.”
Margaret said:
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
That sounded absurd.
Then she corrected herself.
“I know where I put it. I don't know whether it's still there.”
“Where?”
The house.
Not the library.
Margaret's bedroom safe.
She opened it in front of neutral counsel.
The letter was there.
Unopened.
Richard's handwriting:
EVELYN SHAW
Sealed.
Margaret had held it for seven years.
Never sent.
Never opened.
Evelyn took it.
Then stopped.
She looked at Daniel.
Then me.
Then Margaret.
“I don't want to read this with everyone watching.”
Good.
For once, nobody argued.
She took it upstairs.
The house went quiet.
Twenty minutes later, Evelyn came back.
Her face was different.
She handed Daniel the letter.
He read.
Then looked at his mother.
“What?”
I asked.
Daniel gave me the page.
Richard wrote:
I knew about you much earlier than I admitted to myself. I let Margaret's fear become my excuse.
No hero.
Then:
There is one thing Margaret does not know I kept. If she ever tells you I stayed silent only because she asked me to, do not believe her. I made my own bargain.
Below:
Thomas has the blue file.
Margaret stared.
Thomas, still on speaker, went silent.
Daniel looked at the phone.
“What blue file?”
Thomas did not answer immediately.
May you like
Then:
“I was hoping Richard destroyed that.”
