Chapter 8: The Letter Lands
Miriam's letter was delivered on Wednesday morning.
By Wednesday afternoon, Daniel had called four times.
I let each call go to voicemail.
By Thursday, there were two more.
I did not listen to any of them.
I forwarded the missed-call log to Miriam's office, as she had instructed.
On Friday, a text arrived from Diane.
*Eleanor, I think there's been a misunderstanding.
Daniel is devastated.
He never meant for any of this to become confrontational.
He just loves you and wants to be part of your life.
I hope we can find a way forward.*
I read it once.
I sent it to Miriam.
I didn't reply.
Ruth called that evening.
"How are you holding up?"
"Better than I expected," I said honestly.
"Has Thomas been in touch?"
"Every day this week.
He's coming on Saturday." I paused.
"He told me his mother noticed he'd been texting someone.
She checked his phone."
Ruth went quiet.
"She knows it's me?" she said.
"She knows.
She hasn't said anything to him yet.
But he said she went very quiet and left the room." I looked out the kitchen window at the darkening garden.
"He said she looked frightened."
"Patricia frightened," Ruth said slowly.
"That's interesting."
"I thought so too."
What neither of us knew yet was why.
Saturday came.
Thomas arrived by bus at eleven in the morning, a tall boy with his grandfather's eyes and an expression caught somewhere between nervous and determined.
He stood on my porch with a small backpack over one shoulder and said, "Hi, Gran," in a voice that tried to sound casual and didn't quite manage it.
I held the door open.
"Come in," I said.
"I made far too much food."
He almost smiled.
He stepped inside.
We spent two hours at the kitchen table.
He ate three rounds of sandwiches and told me about school — the subjects he liked, the ones he didn't, a teacher he respected, a friend who was going through a difficult time.
He was articulate and careful and occasionally very funny.
I watched him and thought about all the Saturday mornings I had missed.
At some point the conversation shifted.
"She went through my phone," he said.
Not angry.
Just matter-of-fact.
"Mum.
She saw the messages."
"I know.
Are you in trouble?"
"She said I'd betrayed the family." He looked at the table.
"I told her I thought it was the other way around."
"Thomas—"
"I meant it," he said.
"What they did to you isn't okay.
What they were planning isn't okay." He looked up.
"I'm not sorry I told you."
"I'm not asking you to be sorry."
He nodded.
Then, after a pause: "She's scared about something, Gran.
Not just about your solicitor's letter.
Something else.
I heard her on the phone Tuesday night.
She was talking to someone — I don't know who — and she said, 'If he goes down, he's not taking me with him.'"
I set my cup down carefully.
"She said that."
"Yes." He met my eyes.
"I don't know who she was talking about.
But she sounded like she meant it."
I thought about what Thomas had told me in our first phone call — the name Daniel had borrowed money from.
The name that had frightened Patricia.
"Thomas," I said.
"The name your mother was frightened by.
The person your father owes money to.
Can you remember anything about it?"
He thought.
"I only heard it once.
Mum said it, not Dad.
She said—" He paused, working it out.
"She said something like, 'You got involved with Rennick.
You knew what that meant.'"
Rennick.
I wrote the name on the notepad by the kettle.
When Thomas left that afternoon, I stood at the window and watched him walk up the road toward the bus stop with his hands in his pockets.
He turned once and raised a hand.
I raised mine back.
Then I picked up my phone and called Miriam.
"There's a name," I said.
"Rennick.
I think it may explain the financial pressure Daniel is under — and why Patricia is distancing herself from him."
A brief pause.
"How did you get that name?"
"My grandson."
Another pause.
Then: "I'll make some inquiries."
She called back forty minutes later.
"I can't discuss specifics," she said carefully.
"But I can tell you that the name is not unknown in certain legal circles.
And I can tell you that if Daniel has financial entanglements in that direction, his situation is considerably more urgent than we assumed."
"More urgent," I said.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning the pressure on him — and by extension the pressure he was applying to you — is not going to simply stop because of my letter." She paused.
"He needs money, Eleanor.
Quickly.
And if he can't get it from you, he will try something else."
The garden was dark now.
The house was very quiet.
"What would that something else look like?" I said.
"I don't know yet," Miriam said.
"But I'd like you to call me the moment he makes contact again.
Any form of contact."
I said I would.
I sat for a long time after the call, in the chair by the window, in the dark.
My son was in trouble — real trouble, the kind that had nothing to do with me.
And the part of me that was still his mother felt something about that.
Something complicated and unwilling and persistent.
But I had signed a document.
I had protected myself.
May you like
And I had a grandson who had told his mother she had it backwards, at sixteen years old, because it was the right thing to say.
Whatever came next, I was not facing it alone.
