Chapter 31: The Photograph Under the Glass
My mother visited the following Sunday and brought a framed photograph of my father.
She said she had found it behind a stack of old cookbooks while searching for the bank receipt.
The photograph showed him in his workshop, smiling beside a small wooden model of the Ridgeway Community Center.
I had never seen the model before.
My mother said he built it after the project collapsed because he wanted to remember what the center was supposed to become.
The model had been donated to a local school years earlier, and nobody knew whether it survived.
I placed the photograph on the mantel beneath the empty hook.
My mother looked around the room and asked whether I felt safe.
I told her the truth.
Some days I did, and some days I heard a small sound and imagined someone listening.
She said fear could take longer to leave than the person who caused it.
Then she asked what I intended to do with the Ridgeway documents.
I said Simone was arranging for them to be reviewed and preserved, and I would cooperate with any lawful investigation.
My mother nodded.
She said my father would have wanted the facts handled carefully, even if the people involved had not treated him carefully.
Before she left, she told me something I had never known.
My father had once been offered a substantial payment to withdraw his objections and sign the revised certification.
He refused because he could not explain the missing test results.
My mother said the decision cost them their savings, but he never regretted it.
He regretted only that the dispute made him less present at home.
I thought about the evenings he spent in his workshop and the Saturdays he still took me to the library.
I realized I had inherited his stubbornness without understanding the burden that came with it.
After my mother drove away, I called Rachel and thanked her again for sending Patricia’s message.
She asked whether the investigation was almost over.
I said I did not know.
Then I told her I was trying to rebuild the parts of my life that did not depend on the case.
She said that sounded like a good place to begin.
Chapter 32: The Next Knock
Two weeks later, Simone received notice that Elise had retained separate counsel and was seeking to provide information to investigators.
We did not know what she intended to say.
We knew only that her interests might no longer align with Patricia’s or Grant Halden’s.
Simone advised me not to contact her directly.
