Chapter 2 - THE MAN I THOUGHT I KNEW
For twenty years, I believed my husband died without ever meeting Richard Cole.
Now Richard was standing in front of me, holding a piece of jewelry that should have been buried with Thomas.
Lauren forgot the wedding entirely.
“What do you mean Dad was there?”
I looked at Richard.
“You must be mistaken.”
“I’m not.”
His answer came too quickly.
The room seemed to tilt.
Thomas had died when Lauren was seven.
A sudden heart attack, they told us.
He had been forty-one.
Healthy.
Strong.
The kind of man who carried groceries for elderly neighbors and slipped twenty-dollar bills into church donation boxes even when we were barely paying our own electric bill.
After his death, I had built my entire life around raising Lauren.
And now a stranger from my past was telling me Thomas had kept something from me.
Richard turned toward the guests.
“I think this conversation should be private.”
Lauren suddenly snapped.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
She stood at the altar, breathing hard.
“You stopped my wedding in front of everyone. Ethan just told two hundred people my mother saved your life. Now you’re saying my dead father was involved too?”
Her voice broke.
“You don’t get to take this somewhere private.”
I had never seen Lauren look so frightened.
Ethan walked toward her.
“Lauren—”
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Did your father tell you before today?”
Ethan shook his head.
“I recognized your mom from a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
Richard closed his eyes.
That question seemed to hurt him.
After a moment, he reached into his jacket again.
This time, he removed his phone.
He opened an image.
Then handed it to Lauren.
I watched her face change.
The photograph was old.
Snowy.
Blurry.
Taken outside a hospital emergency entrance.
Richard was sitting in a wheelchair.
I stood beside him, twenty years younger, my coat stained and torn.
And standing behind me was Thomas.
My husband.
He was looking directly at the camera.
But someone else stood beside him.
A young man in a dark coat.
I didn’t recognize him.
Lauren zoomed in.
“Who is that?”
Richard looked toward the front pew.
His wife, Evelyn, had gone completely still.
I noticed her expression immediately.
She knew.
Richard followed my eyes.
“Evelyn?”
She said nothing.
“Who is he?”
Her lips tightened.
Then a voice came from three rows behind her.
“I know who he is.”
Everyone turned.
An elderly man rose from his seat.
Ethan whispered:
“Uncle Samuel?”
Samuel walked slowly into the aisle.
He looked at me, then at Lauren.
“That man,” he said, pointing toward the photograph, “is the reason your father spent the last six months of his life terrified.”
And suddenly, Evelyn stood.
“Samuel, don’t.”
He looked directly at her.
“You’ve kept this quiet long enough.”
Then he said the name I had not heard in more than two decades.
“David Mercer.”
My stomach dropped.
May you like
Because David Mercer had attended Thomas’s funeral.
And he had told me he was my husband’s oldest friend.
