Valerie called on Saturday morning, two days after Garrett asked to see Liam. I was making pancakes when my phone rang, and for a moment I assumed it was Brenda again. The unfamiliar number nearly went unanswered.
“Is this Samantha?” a woman asked.
“Yes. Who's calling?”
“My name is Valerie. I'm Garrett's partner.”
I turned off the burner. A thin ribbon of smoke rose from the edge of the first pancake, forgotten in the pan.
“I know who you are,” I said.
“I imagine you do.” She sounded nervous, but not hostile. “I'm sorry to call without warning. Garrett knows I'm contacting you, although I haven't told him exactly what I intend to ask.”
That distinction made me wary.
“What do you want to know?”
“Whether you and Garrett are still dealing with financial matters from your marriage. He told me everything between you was settled years ago. But this week, he became extremely upset when I asked about some documents he'd kept in a locked drawer.”
I leaned against the counter.
“What documents?”
“I don't know. That's the problem. He said they were old paperwork that didn't concern me. Then he accused Brenda of trying to damage his reputation and said you were being encouraged to make trouble for him.”
I had heard that pattern before. Garrett had never needed to invent an entirely different story. He merely rearranged the facts until the person listening was positioned to distrust everyone else.
“Valerie, I can't tell you what those documents mean yet. I'm working with a legal adviser to establish that. But there are records relating to accounts I didn't know existed, and I paid debts after our divorce that may be connected to them.”
She went quiet.
“He told me he had no outstanding financial obligations from his previous marriage.”
“I can't tell you whether that's true without seeing all the records. I can tell you that I haven't finished investigating.”
“Did he leave you in debt?”
“Yes.”
“Did he support Liam afterward?”
“He didn't support him in the way a father should. I raised Liam without his regular involvement.”
I heard a faint rustle, as though Valerie had sat down.
“Garrett told me you didn't want him involved,” she said. “He said you'd made it clear that you preferred to raise Liam on your own.”
The words struck me with the force of an old injury.
“I never told him that. He left. He stopped calling. He paid Evelyn to ask questions about us, but he never asked me whether he could be part of Liam's life.”
“Evelyn?”
“Our former neighbor. She admitted that Garrett paid her to keep him informed about our lives. She believed he might eventually come back.”
Valerie didn't speak for several seconds.
“I'm sorry,” she said finally. “I didn't know any of that.”
I couldn't tell whether she was expressing sympathy or trying to convince herself that she hadn't been complicit in Garrett's choices. I decided not to ask her to prove anything over the phone.
“What did he tell you about his divorce?” I asked.
“That you had both agreed to separate, that the debts were divided fairly, and that he had stayed away because contact between you always became difficult. He said you were angry, which he understood, but that there was nothing left to discuss.”
I looked at the stack of paperwork on the table.
“Did he tell you that I had to work extra hours to cover the debts?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you that Liam used to wait for his calls?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you that he asked Evelyn to monitor us?”
“No.”
Her answers grew quieter each time.
I took a breath. “I'm not asking you to choose between us. I don't know you well enough to ask that, and I don't want this to become a contest over who understands Garrett best. But if you're planning a future with him, you deserve to know whether the things he's telling you match the records.”
“I agree.”
“Then don't rely on my version, either. Ask for the documents. Have someone independent review them. If everything is as he says, the records should support him.”
Valerie thanked me. Before ending the call, she asked whether Liam knew about her.
“He knows his father has a partner,” I said. “I haven't given him unnecessary details. He's trying to decide whether he even wants to meet Garrett.”
“That's fair.”
She sounded as though she meant it.
After we hung up, I stood in the kitchen staring at the burnt pancake. I had expected Garrett's request to see Liam to stir up old grief. I hadn't expected his new partner to call and reveal that he had been telling her a story in which I was the reason he had disappeared.
I scraped the pancake into the bin and started another batch.
When Liam came downstairs, he noticed the smoke detector blinking above the kitchen doorway.
“Did you burn breakfast?”
“Only the first one.”
“That's the best one,” he said solemnly, reaching for a plate.
I laughed despite myself. The ordinary exchange helped settle my thoughts. Whatever Garrett had told Valerie, Liam's life was not waiting for his father to return. It was unfolding every day, in homework assignments, breakfast, school projects, and the small routines we had built together.
That afternoon, Brenda came over with a folder of her own. She had spoken to Valerie the previous evening and confirmed that they had both been given similar explanations about the past.
“She asked whether I was trying to get money from him,” Brenda said, placing the folder on the table.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I was trying to find out whether he had told me the truth about our finances. I said I wouldn't make claims I couldn't support, but I wasn't going to protect him from questions just because he was angry.”
I nodded.
“Good.”
Brenda opened the folder. Inside were copies of several emails, bank statements, and handwritten notes. She had organized them by date, as Ms. Patel had advised.
“I found a reference to an account closing,” she said. “The date is after Garrett and I separated, but before he started telling people that everything was settled.”
“Does it identify where the money went?”
“Not directly. There's a transfer reference, and the destination account is partially masked. Martin might be able to trace it through the records he still has.”
We added the document to the list of questions for Ms. Patel. I reminded Brenda not to interpret the transfer as proof of anything until we knew what it represented.
She gave me a tired smile. “I know. I'm trying to learn from this.”
For the next hour, we compared dates. Several payments lined up with the period when Evelyn had been receiving money from Garrett. Others were unrelated household expenses. The pattern was incomplete, but the timeline showed that he had continued moving money between accounts after the divorce was underway.
One notation appeared beside a transfer made three weeks before the settlement was signed: Hold until release confirmed.
“Release of what?” I asked.
Brenda shook her head. “I don't know.”
The phrase could have referred to a loan, a business transaction, or something entirely ordinary. But in combination with the email about keeping the old accounts separate, it deserved investigation.
I photographed the page and sent it to Ms. Patel through her office's secure system.
Later, while Brenda was putting the papers away, she asked whether I thought Garrett might genuinely want to reconnect with Liam.
“I don't know,” I said. “He may regret what happened. He may also want to feel that he's repaired something without having to do the difficult work. We can't know which until we see what he does.”
“Do you think Liam should meet him?”
“I think Liam should be allowed to decide without being pressured. If he wants a meeting, we can plan one carefully. If he doesn't, Garrett will have to accept that.”
Brenda nodded.
“I wish I'd understood earlier how much of Garrett's life depended on everyone else accommodating him.”
“So do I.”
She left shortly afterward, taking the original documents with her and leaving me copies of the pages relevant to my case.
That evening, Valerie sent me a message. She said she had asked Garrett to show her the documents he had described as harmless, and he had refused. He accused her of taking my side and said she was allowing herself to be manipulated.
I read the message twice before replying.
I told her I couldn't advise her about her relationship, but she should trust her judgment and seek independent advice if she was concerned about financial commitments or legal obligations. I also said that I didn't want Liam used as leverage in any disagreement between adults.
She responded with a single sentence.
That's exactly what I'm afraid of.
I put the phone away and went to check on Liam. He was sitting on his bedroom floor, drawing a little bench beneath a tree. Beside him lay a photograph of Evelyn's cardboard house, which he had taken before we gave it to her.
“What are you drawing?” I asked.
“A place where people can sit if they don't want to talk.”
I crouched beside him.
“That's thoughtful.”
He added another line to the drawing.
“Sometimes people want someone nearby, but they don't want to explain everything.”
I thought of Evelyn holding the photograph, and of Brenda trying to reconcile the man she had married with the evidence she was uncovering. I thought of Valerie, who had called me because the story she had been given no longer matched the person she was living with.
“That's true,” I said.
Liam set down his pencil.
“If Dad comes to see me, can we meet somewhere like that? Somewhere we can leave if I don't like it?”
I felt a knot tighten in my chest.
“Yes. We can choose somewhere public and quiet. We can make sure you have a way to leave whenever you want.”
“Can you stay nearby?”
“Of course.”
He nodded and returned to the drawing.
I didn't tell him that Garrett had not yet agreed to anything beyond expressing a wish to see him. I didn't want a possibility to become another promise Liam would wait for.
Before bed, I reviewed the documents for my appointment with Ms. Patel. The phrase Hold until release confirmed remained circled on the page. I couldn't explain it, but I no longer felt compelled to invent an answer.
The evidence would either clarify the phrase or leave it unresolved.
For years, Garrett had benefited from the fact that the people around him didn't compare what they knew. Now Brenda, Valerie, and I were asking separate questions and preserving the answers. We weren't united by affection or even by trust. We were united by the need to understand what had happened.
That was enough to keep going.
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: Liam Agreed to Consider One Meeting With His Father, but He Set a Condition Garrett Had Never Expected to Hear
Twenty Minutes After I Finally Trusted My Son to Walk Home Alone, My Neighbor Was Waiting With Tears in Her Eyes
Part 13 of 20
