Chapter 2 - THE DEAD WOMAN
My father grabbed my arm.
“Daniel, inside. Now.”
I pulled away.
“No.”
His eyes hardened.
“This woman is disturbed.”
The woman laughed once.
It wasn’t funny.
It was a broken sound.
“Disturbed?”
Security waited uncertainly at the bottom of the steps.
Cameras were still pointed at us.
Guests whispered.
Natalie leaned close.
“Maybe we should go somewhere private.”
My father snapped, “There is nothing to discuss.”
I looked at him.
“Then why do you look scared?”
That shut him up.
The woman reached into her coat.
Security moved instantly.
“Hands where we can see them!”
She froze.
Then slowly pulled out an envelope.
“Documents,” she said. “That’s all.”
She handed it to me.
My father lunged.
I stepped back.
“No.”
“Daniel!”
I tore open the envelope.
Inside was a birth certificate.
My birth certificate.
Daniel James Whitmore.
Father: Richard Alan Whitmore.
Mother: Evelyn Marie Carter.
I read the name again.
Evelyn.
The woman standing before me.
I looked at her.
“You’re Evelyn?”
Her lips trembled.
“I was.”
My father said, “Anyone can forge papers.”
She reached into the envelope again.
Hospital records.
School registration forms.
Photographs.
A Mother’s Day card covered in a child’s uneven handwriting.
I recognized my own handwriting.
I LOVE YOU MOMMY.
My vision blurred.
I looked at my father.
“You told me my mother died in a car accident.”
“She did.”
Evelyn went still.
Then she said, “No, Richard. That’s how your second wife died.”
The words landed like a grenade.
Natalie whispered, “Second wife?”
My father’s face turned rigid.
I stared at him.
“You said Mom died when I was six.”
He pointed at Evelyn.
“She abandoned you.”
Evelyn flinched.
“No.”
“You disappeared.”
“Because you made me disappear!”
My father stepped closer.
“Enough.”
“No,” I said.
My voice was louder now.
Guests stopped whispering.
“You don’t get to say enough.”
Natalie touched my arm.
I barely felt it.
“Tell me what happened.”
My father shook his head.
“Not here.”
Evelyn said, “He took you after the accident.”
My head snapped toward her.
“What accident?”
She looked like she regretted the words.
My father shouted, “Don’t!”
That single word told me everything.
There was an accident.
And my father didn’t want me to know.
Evelyn swallowed.
“You were six years old. We were driving home from your grandmother’s house. A truck ran a red light.”
Images flickered through my mind.
Rain.
Glass.
Screaming.
Red lights spinning.
“My head…” I whispered.
“You suffered a traumatic brain injury,” she said. “You forgot pieces of your childhood.”
My father said, “You almost died.”
Evelyn nodded.
“He’s right about that.”
For one second, something almost human passed between them.
Then Evelyn looked at me again.
“When you woke up, you were confused. Your father told the hospital he would take care of you while I recovered.”
“Recovered from what?”
Her hand moved unconsciously toward her ribs.
“I was in another hospital.”
Silence.
“For three months.”
My father’s jaw tightened.
“And when she came out, she was unstable.”
Evelyn’s eyes flashed.
“I came out to find my apartment empty, my bank account frozen, and my son gone.”
I looked at my father.
“You took me?”
“I protected you.”
“From my mother?”
“From chaos.”
Evelyn whispered, “He got a court order saying I was dangerous.”
My father said, “Because you were.”
She reached into her coat one final time.
This time, she pulled out a photocopy.
A psychiatric evaluation.
Across the top was a doctor’s name.
Dr. Samuel Reeves.
Evelyn pointed at the signature.
“That report said I was mentally unstable and unfit to parent.”
My father folded his arms.
“There.”
Evelyn looked directly at me.
“Dr. Reeves died eight years ago.”
I frowned.
“So?”
“So three months before he died, he found me.”
My father’s face changed.
Evelyn continued.
“And he admitted Richard paid him to write it.”
Nobody moved.
Then Natalie whispered the question I was too shocked to ask.
“Do you have proof?”
Evelyn reached for another envelope.
May you like
My father suddenly shoved past me.
And ripped it out of her hand.
