Chapter 6 - David Wanted Everything Handled Quietly
Ryan’s father, David Carter, asked to meet us.
I almost refused.
Ryan wanted to hear him.
So we met at my attorney’s office.
David sat across from us with both hands folded.
He looked twenty years older than he had at the baby shower.
“What Linda did was indefensible.”
Ryan stared.
“Then why did she do it?”
“She became obsessed.”
“With what?”
“Losing access to Lily.”
“That does not explain putting my child in a toilet.”
David looked down.
“She thought Emma was taking you away.”
I actually laughed.
“I offered Ryan a jobless move to a city two hours away?”
David winced.
“You know how Linda thinks.”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“That sentence has protected her for twelve years.”
David said nothing.
Then he used the phrase that changed Ryan’s face.
“She was afraid history was repeating.”
Ryan frowned.
“What history?”
David immediately regretted speaking.
“Dad?”
Nothing.
“History with who?”
David looked toward the door.
Then:
“Your mother.”
Ryan went completely still.
His biological mother, Susan Hale, had been almost mythical in our marriage.
Ryan remembered very little.
Family history said Susan suffered a severe postpartum breakdown when Ryan was an infant.
She became unsafe.
David received custody.
Susan moved to Kentucky.
Contact faded.
Linda entered their lives later.
Eventually she and David married.
Ryan had always summarized it simply:
“My mom left. Linda stayed.”
Now David looked terrified of the subject.
Ryan asked:
“What does Linda have to do with Mom?”
David whispered:
“She was there.”
“Where?”
“When we realized Susan wasn’t safe.”
I watched my husband’s expression change.
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Linda had not entered the family years after Ryan lost his mother.
She had been present while it happened.
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