“Me?”
“You were five.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“If the business collapsed, I had no income. Your mother was gone. I thought—”
“You thought lying about how she died would help me?”
“No.”
He stopped.
“I thought surviving financially would help you.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“I know.”
The brother spoke quietly.
“He took the blame for driving. The official report said the car lost control after another vehicle crossed the line.”
“But there was another truck.”
“Yes.”
“It just didn’t cause the crash.”
“Correct.”
“Did the driver stop?”
“For a few minutes. Then left after giving a statement.”
“Why didn’t that person say what happened?”
“He only saw our car cross the line.”
I felt sick.
“So everybody believed some mystery vehicle caused it.”
“Not everybody,” my father said.
“Who didn’t?”
Neither man answered immediately.
Then my stepmother spoke from behind us.
“Your grandmother.”
I had nearly forgotten she was there.
I turned.
“You knew?”
She gave a small nod.
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“How long?”
“About six months.”
My father stared at her.
“Six months?”
She ignored him.
“I found paperwork in the storage cabinet.”
“What paperwork?”
“A private investigator’s report.”
My father looked genuinely confused.
“What private investigator?”
She smiled sadly.
“You really didn’t know.”
The brother closed his eyes.
I looked at him.
“What?”
He sighed.
“Your grandmother hired someone after the funeral.”
My heart started pounding again.
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t believe the report.”
My mother’s mother.
The woman who had kept me the night of the accident.
The woman who still called me every Sunday.
The woman who had never once told me that she suspected my father had lied.
“She knew?”
My father shook his head.
“She suspected.”
The brother corrected him.
“She knew enough.”
I grabbed my phone.
My father looked at me.
“Who are you calling?”
“Grandma.”
“Maybe wait.”
“No.”
“She’s older now.”
“She was apparently young enough to investigate my mother’s death.”
I pressed call.
It rang twice.
She answered.
“Sweetheart?”
Hearing her voice nearly destroyed me.
I turned away from everyone.
“Grandma.”
“What’s wrong?”
I could hear television in the background.
Then she heard my breathing.
Her tone changed.
“What happened?”
I looked toward the photograph.
“There’s a man standing next to Dad in an old picture.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Silence.
That told me everything.
“You know who I mean.”
She sighed.
“Where is your father?”
“Here.”
“And his brother?”