Addison tasted the salty wetness of her tears as they formed pools on her upper lip. It had been a long time since she’d had a good, hard cry. Even at her mother’s funeral, she’d remained silent, keeping it all in, holding it together for her father. Now she let the tears flow. Not just for the news he’d given her, but for the loss of her mother too. For once in her life, she released it, letting it all go. Her father waited, his arm wrapped around her, his shoulder serving as a conduit for her to cry on.
Once she gathered herself together, she stood up, pacing the floor while shouting, “How?! How could you and Mom have lied to me for all these years?”
“We were trying to protect you.”
She slammed a hand down on her jeans. “From what, Dad?! Maybe I didn’t need protecting.”
“If you knew the reasons—”
“Why you lied to me?” she asked. “Will hearing them make it right?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m trying to undo what’s already been done in the best way I know how. Maybe you don’t think parents are supposed to make mistakes, like we have some kind of child-raising handbook, and we can just whip it out, flip to a chapter, and see what we are supposed to do. We don’t. It’s trial and error. All of it is.”
Her muscles tensed and her shoulder throbbed, the pain and stress flowing to one specific spot all at once. Her father had come clean. The least she could do is hear him out. She took a cleansing breath and sat back down. “I’m glad you told me. But I have questions, and I need answers.”
He nodded, remaining silent.
“What made you decide to tell me?”
“A week ago I received a letter from Marjorie in the mail. Somehow she’d found out your mother had died. She begged me to let her see you, and knowing you were an adult now, she said if I didn’t, she’d find you herself.”
“So…you told me because you had to?”
“When I came here and we talked about the experiences you’d had as a child, I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. I mulled it over on the plane ride home, all the while knowing if your mother was alive, she would never approve of me telling you. The last thing I wanted was to dishonor her memory by going against her wishes.”
Addison crossed one leg over the other. “But you did it anyway.”
“When I arrived home, I received another letter from your grandmother.”
“What did it say?”
“That’s what was strange. It was a piece of paper, folded several times, and when I opened it, there was only one sentence written in the middle of the page.”
He reached into the pocket, pulled out a white piece of paper, and passed it to her. She turned it over in her hands before opening it. On the inside, written in all caps in red pen, it said: KEEP ADDISON AWAY FROM GRAYSON MANOR.
“She knows where you are, Addy. She knows you’re here.”