Chapter 2 - The Envelope With Emily's Name.
The doorbell rang again.
I did not move.
Neither did Marlene.
Lily stayed pressed against my side while I held Emily's envelope in one hand and my mother's purse in the other.
The study suddenly felt too small for all the things I did not understand.
“Who is at the door?” I asked.
Marlene folded her arms.
“I have no idea.”
Her answer came too quickly.
The bell sounded a fifth time.
Then someone knocked hard enough to rattle the glass beside the front door.
“Ryan?” a woman's voice called from the hall.
I recognized it.
Claire.
My older sister.
Marlene closed her eyes for half a beat.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
“You called Claire?”
“She was already coming over.”
“You were pinning Lily to the floor and Claire was already coming over?”
Marlene's jaw tightened.
“You are making this uglier than it is.”
I almost laughed.
There was something surreal about hearing those words while I held a guardianship petition naming my mother as the person who should take my child.
I led Lily into the hallway without letting Marlene touch the purse.
Claire was still knocking when I opened the door.
She stepped inside carrying a canvas tote and stopped when she saw my face.
“What happened?”
Then she saw Lily.
Her eyes moved immediately to the red mark on Lily's arm.
“Jesus, Ryan.”
Marlene came into the hallway behind us.
“Claire, thank God.”
My sister looked from our mother to me.
“What is going on?”
“Your brother has lost perspective.”
I lifted the guardianship petition.
“Did you know about this?”
Claire stared at the document.
“Know about what?”
“Mom filed paperwork to take Lily.”
Marlene stepped forward.
“I did not file anything.”
“It's a petition with your name on it.”
“A draft.”
Claire's face tightened.
“A draft for what?”
Marlene's voice softened.
“For an emergency that may never happen.”
I felt Lily's hand slide into mine.
“What emergency?” I asked.
Marlene looked at me with a strange sadness.
“You.”
For a moment, even Claire said nothing.
Marlene continued before I could respond.
“You haven't been yourself since Emily died.”
My grip on the envelope tightened.
“You've been angry.”
“I have been grieving.”
“You've been isolated.”
“I work from home.”
“You forget things.”
“Everyone forgets things.”
“You barely sleep.”
I stared at her.
She knew because she had made herself indispensable after Emily died.
She had started coming over every morning.
She picked Lily up from school twice a week.
She brought casseroles I never asked for and reorganized drawers I never asked her to touch.
I had mistaken invasion for help because I had been too tired to call it anything else.
Claire stepped between us.
“Stop.”
She looked at me.
“What is in the envelope?”
My throat tightened.
“I don't know.”
Marlene's eyes sharpened.
“Don't open it.”
Claire looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because it is private.”
I laughed once.
“It's addressed to me.”
Marlene said nothing.
I took Lily into the kitchen and sat her at the breakfast table.
Claire brought her a glass of water.
My daughter wrapped both hands around it but did not drink.
Marlene stood near the doorway.
I did not let her come closer.
I opened Emily's envelope.
The paper inside had been folded twice.
There were three pages.
The first sentence made my stomach twist.
Ryan, if you are reading this, then I was not able to tell you everything myself.
I sat down.
Claire moved behind my shoulder.
Marlene took one step backward.
I kept reading.
Emily wrote that she had discovered irregular transfers from an account established by my father before he died.
The account had been intended to support Lily's education and future care.
I knew about the trust.
What I had never known was that Emily had found transfers leaving it.
Small amounts at first.
Then larger ones.
The authorizations appeared to carry my signature.
Emily knew they were not mine.
She had compared them to tax documents and old mortgage papers.
She believed someone had been forging my name.
My eyes moved to Marlene.
She looked away.
I read on.
Emily had confronted a bank representative.
The representative told her that someone with family access had supplied identity documents and answered security questions correctly.
Emily had begun collecting records.
She had stored copies on a flash drive and placed the drive in the study lockbox.
My hand tightened around the red drive.
Claire whispered, “Oh my God.”
The letter continued.
Emily wrote that she had not told me immediately because the person she suspected was someone I loved deeply.
Someone who would know how to turn my disbelief against her.
Someone who had already accused Emily of trying to isolate me from my family.
The next paragraph contained my mother's name.
Marlene Mercer.
The letters seemed larger than everything around them.
I heard Claire inhale.
Marlene shook her head.
“No.”
I looked at her.
She stepped forward.
“No, Ryan.”
I held up my hand.
“Don't.”
“Emily hated me.”
“She wrote that you forged my signature.”
“She was paranoid.”
Claire looked at her sharply.
“Mom.”
“It is true.”
Marlene pointed at the letter.
“You both remember how she was that last year.”
My chair scraped backward.
“Do not do that.”
“I am telling you what happened.”
“You are talking about my dead wife because she cannot answer you.”
Marlene's face reddened.
“And she is talking about me from beyond the grave because I cannot question her.”
Lily flinched.
I lowered my voice immediately.
The third page of Emily's letter was shorter.
She wrote that if anything happened to her, I should take the flash drive to Noah Bennett, the attorney who had prepared my father's trust.
She warned me not to confront anyone until the records had been copied.
At the bottom, in hurried handwriting, she added one final line.
Please believe Lily if she ever tells you she is frightened of someone you trust.
I stared at that sentence until the room blurred.
Emily had written Lily's name two years ago.
Lily had been four.
Why would Emily write that?
I looked at my daughter.
She was staring at the tabletop.
“Lily.”
She did not answer.
I crouched beside her.
“Sweetheart, did Grandma ever scare you before today?”
Marlene snapped, “Ryan, no.”
Claire turned on her.
“Let him ask.”
Lily's lower lip trembled.
She nodded.
My chest tightened.
“When?”
She looked toward the study.
“When Mommy was here.”
Every adult in the kitchen went still.
Marlene's face lost color.
I felt as though the floor had moved beneath me.
“You remember something from when Mommy was alive?”
Lily nodded again.
“She told Grandma to get out.”
Marlene's voice came sharp and immediate.
“That never happened.”
Lily recoiled.
I stood and moved between them.
“Stop answering for her.”
Marlene pressed her lips together.
I turned back to Lily.
“What did Mommy say?”
My daughter searched her memory with the serious concentration only children have.
“She said, ‘You don't get to use my child to control him.’”
Claire sat down slowly.
I could not.
The room seemed to tilt.
I had been at work the day Emily must have said those words.
I remembered coming home to find her quiet and tense.
She had told me she had a headache.
I had believed her.
Lily pointed at the red flash drive.
“Grandma took that from the little box.”
“When?”
“Today.”
“Did she say why?”
Lily nodded.
“She was on the phone.”
Marlene took another step toward the hallway.
Claire noticed.
“Mom, don't leave.”
Marlene's face hardened.
“I will not be interrogated in my son's kitchen.”
I held up the silver key attached to the drive.
“What does 314 open?”
Her eyes flickered.
“I don't know.”
It was the first lie I could identify with absolute certainty.
I had seen that same number before.
Not on Emily's lockbox.
Somewhere else.
Then Claire whispered, “Dad's old bank.”
I looked at her.
She was staring at the key.
“The safe-deposit boxes at First County Bank used three-digit tags.”
Marlene's expression changed.
Claire saw it too.
“Oh my God,” she said.
I looked back at the silver key.
Box 314.
My father had kept a safe-deposit box when we were children.
After he died, Marlene told us it had been closed.
I had never questioned her.
Now the number sat in my palm beside a flash drive my dead wife had hidden from her.
The doorbell rang again.
This time, no one had been knocking before it.
A man's voice came from outside.
“Mr. Mercer?”
I walked into the hall and looked through the glass.
Two police officers stood on my porch.
Behind me, Marlene let out a quiet breath.
Not surprise.
Relief.
Then I understood.
May you like
She had called them before I came home.
THE BLACK PURSE
