Chapter 8 - Linda’s Signature Was on the Old Affidavit
The affidavit was signed:
LINDA MARSHALL.
Her maiden name.
Ryan read it without speaking.
Linda wrote:
Susan appeared increasingly irrational in the weeks before the incident.
She frequently slept during daytime hours.
She seemed resentful of David’s family support.
She repeatedly discussed taking Ryan away.
Taking Ryan away.
I felt the room go cold.
Susan had wanted to move closer to Karen in Kentucky.
Just as I wanted to move closer to my sister in Cincinnati.
The parallels were no longer subtle.
Then Ryan reached the description of the bathtub incident.
Linda claimed she heard Ryan crying.
Entered the bathroom.
Found him in the tub.
Susan was supposedly upstairs.
Linda rescued him.
David came home minutes later.
Ryan put the paper down.
“This is what happened to Lily.”
Nobody answered.
Not exactly.
But close enough.
A baby.
Water.
An exhausted mother.
Linda positioned as rescuer.
The mother characterized as unstable.
Then Karen handed Ryan a letter Susan wrote after losing primary custody.
I know what Linda did. I cannot prove it. Your father knows more than he says.
Ryan read the sentence twice.
“What did Dad know?”
Karen shook her head.
“Susan never told me.”
Then another letter.
Linda keeps telling everyone she saved Ryan from me. One day she will make him believe she was the mother who stayed because I was the mother who failed.
Ryan stood and walked out of the room.
I found him in the hallway crying against the wall.
For thirty-three years, his identity had rested on one story.
His mother abandoned him.
May you like
Linda saved him.
Now that story had a crack running straight through it.
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