Part 10 — The Accident That Wasn’t an Accident
I read the sentence again.
Then again.
But no matter how many times my eyes moved across those words, they refused to become easier to understand.
The accident that separated us was never an accident.
My hands went cold.
For thirty-one years, I had carried one memory.
A story.
A tragedy.
My mother died in a car accident.
That was the foundation of my entire childhood.
The reason I grew up without her.
The reason I believed life had simply taken something precious away from me.
But now Frank was saying something completely different.
The accident wasn’t an accident.
I looked at Thomas.
“Did you know?”
He didn’t answer.
And that silence was the answer.
“You knew.”
Thomas looked down.
“I suspected.”
My voice cracked.
“You suspected that my mother’s death was a lie, and nobody told me?”
“Claire—”
“No.”
I stood up.
“No more protecting me. No more deciding what truth I can survive.”
The room went quiet.
Because even Thomas understood.
I wasn’t angry only at Frank anymore.
I was angry at every person who had known pieces of my life while I lived inside a lie.
Thomas took a slow breath.
“When the crash happened, I knew something was wrong.”
“What happened?”
He stared at the old letter.
“Your mother was supposed to meet me that night.”
I froze.
“She was?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“An hour before the accident.”
My heart started beating faster.
“She was leaving Frank?”
Thomas nodded.
“She had finally decided she was done running. She told me she was taking you and leaving.”
I closed my eyes.
A memory flashed.
A little girl.
A woman holding my hand.
A voice telling me everything would be okay.
But it disappeared before I could grab onto it.
“What happened after that?”
Thomas looked toward the window.
“Elaine never arrived.”
I waited.
“Hours later, I heard about the crash.”
“And you believed she died?”
“At first.”
He looked back at me.
“But then something bothered me.”
“What?”
“Frank’s reaction.”
I frowned.
“What about it?”
“He wasn’t shocked.”
The words made my stomach twist.
“He wasn’t grieving?”
“No.”
Thomas shook his head.
“He was prepared.”
The room suddenly felt smaller.
“He already had answers. He already knew where Elaine supposedly was taken. He already knew what the police would say.”
My breathing became uneven.
“Because he planned it.”
Thomas didn’t respond.
He didn’t need to.
The truth was becoming impossible to ignore.
I picked up Frank’s letter again.
The next paragraph waited below.
I thought removing Elaine from your life would make you safe. I convinced myself I was saving you from losing everything. But I was wrong.
I kept reading.
The night of the accident, I made a choice that changed all of our lives.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
I followed Elaine.
My eyes widened.
“What?”
Thomas leaned forward.
“What does it say?”
I read aloud.
“‘I followed Elaine because I knew she was going to leave me. I knew she was going to take Claire away. I thought if I could stop her, I could fix everything.’”
The room went silent.
Then I saw the next line.
And my entire body froze.
‘But I was not the only person following her that night.’
I looked at Thomas.
“What does that mean?”
He slowly shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
I continued reading.
‘Someone else wanted Elaine gone. Someone who had much more to lose than I did.’
My heart sank.
Because Frank was admitting something I never thought possible.
He wasn’t the only person responsible.
There was someone else.
Someone who had been hiding for thirty-one years.
I turned the page.
Only one sentence was written there.
Claire, if you want the truth about what happened to your mother, find the person who called me that night.
Below it was a name.
A name I recognized immediately.
A name that made Thomas stand up.
“No.”
His voice was barely a whisper.
“What?”
He stared at the page.
“That’s impossible.”
“Who is it?”
Thomas looked at me.
And for the first time since I met him…
I saw fear.
Real fear.
“Claire…”
He pointed to the name.
“The person who called Frank that night…”
I held my breath.
“It was your grandmother.”
I felt the world stop.
“My grandmother?”
Thomas nodded slowly.
“Your mother’s own mother.”
I stared at the name.
Because I had spent my entire life believing my family abandoned me.
But now I was discovering something much worse.
They hadn’t abandoned me.
They had been hiding something.
And my grandmother knew the truth from the very beginning.
