Chapter 5 - ETHAN’S LETTER
I opened Ethan’s letter alone.
Not because he asked me to.
Because I needed to meet the twenty-nine-year-old man who wrote it before facing the thirty-six-year-old one sitting in my living room.
Emma,
I don’t know why you won’t answer.
My chest tightened.
I continued.
My mother says you took money. I don’t believe her.
I stopped.
That changed something.
For seven years, I thought Ethan believed Margaret immediately.
He had told himself later that he knew exactly what happened.
But in the beginning?
He doubted her.
I read on.
I went to your apartment. Empty.
I called your office. They said you resigned.
Your number doesn’t work.
I’m angry enough to break something, but mostly I’m scared.
If you wanted to leave me, tell me yourself.
Don’t let my mother become the last person who speaks for you.
Tears blurred the page.
Then:
If you are pregnant, please tell me.
I stopped breathing.
How did he know?
The next line answered.
I found the prenatal vitamins in your bathroom trash after you left.
I sat down.
He had known there was a possibility.
He had written.
Someone hid it.
Then:
If the baby is mine, I want to know.
If you hate me, I still want to know.
If you never want to see me again, I will respect that.
But please do not let anyone tell our child I chose not to come.
I covered my mouth.
That was exactly what almost happened.
The final line:
I love you. If you don’t love me anymore, I’ll survive it. I just need the truth to come from you.
Ethan.
I cried for a long time.
Then folded the letter.
When I returned to the living room, Ethan was asleep on the rug beside Noah’s train set.
Noah had placed a plastic dinosaur on his chest.
I almost laughed.
Then Ethan opened his eyes.
He saw the letter.
Sat up immediately.
“Where did you get that?”
“Hale storage.”
His face changed.
“You never got it.”
“No.”
He stood.
“I wrote three.”
Richard looked over.
“Three?”
“Yes.”
Only one had been found.
“What happened to the others?”
No one knew.
Then Victoria called.
She was at the storage unit.
Her voice shook.
“You need to come.”
We did.
The unit contained six file boxes.
Each labeled by year.
Margaret had kept everything.
My letters.
Phone records.
Copies of bank transfers.
Private investigator reports.
Photographs.
Even prenatal clinic information.
“She had me followed.”
Ethan looked sick.
Then we opened a box dated the year Noah was born.
Inside was a birth announcement.
Not one I sent.
Someone had acquired it from county records.
Margaret knew Noah had been born.
Then another document.
Private investigator report.
SUBJECT: EMMA CARTER
CHILD: NOAH CARTER
LIKELY PATERNAL CONNECTION: ETHAN BLACKWOOD
Ethan sat down.
His mother had known he had a son.
For years before she died.
And said nothing.
Then Richard found a sealed instruction letter.
To Alan Hale.
If Ethan discovers the child before age seven, activate Clause 14.
Ethan frowned.
“What is Clause 14?”
Richard went pale.
“What?”
“Dad.”
Richard sat.
“It’s part of your grandfather’s trust.”
“What does it do?”
His voice became quiet.
“If an unacknowledged child of a direct Blackwood heir is established before the heir’s thirty-fifth birthday, the heir’s controlling shares move temporarily into independent trusteeship until paternity and succession are resolved.”
Ethan stared.
“So Mom hid Noah to protect my voting control.”
Richard nodded.
Partly.
Then he looked at me.
“But that still doesn’t explain why she kept hiding him after Ethan turned thirty-five.”
My stomach tightened.
Margaret died when Ethan was thirty-two.
Alan Hale kept the secret after her death.
Why?
Victoria looked at the missing trust documents.
Then whispered:
“Because the money.”
The five-million-dollar child trust disappeared after Margaret died.
If Ethan discovered Noah—
May you like
he would discover the trust.
And Alan Hale’s theft.
