I kept his threatening note and gave it to the investigator.
But there was another conversation I never told you about.
Emily stopped reading.
She remembered those terrible months.
The interviews. The questions. The adults discussing her life as though she weren’t sitting in the same room.
She remembered wanting to disappear.
But her father had never mentioned being threatened.
She wiped her eyes and continued.
A few months later, Lucas’s mother came to see me again.
This time, she came alone.
She cried and begged me to let her see her granddaughter, even if only once.
I told her that decision belonged to you, Emily, and that you would make it when you were ready.
She left an address and a photograph of Lucas.
I didn’t give them to you.
You were only beginning to recover, and I couldn’t bear the thought of reopening those wounds.
