**Part 2**
“Who gave that order?” I asked.
“I don’t have the original document. I got instructions from Walter not to give you any information about the girl.”
“And you obeyed?”
“The same way I obeyed when I handed you the photographs.”
I neither struck him nor summoned the men I’d once used to silence problems. I obtained copies of the documents he agreed to release and warned him that an attorney would demand explanations. Back home that night, Tiffany was selecting wedding invitations.
“How well do you know Walter?” I asked.
She barely glanced up.
“The same as you. Why?”
“Because you both paid Russell.”
Her expression immediately changed.
“Garrett, you’re jumping to dangerous conclusions.”
“That’s exactly what Megan told me. And I didn’t listen.”
I walked out before she could concoct another story. Anger had always stopped me from hearing people. This time, I intended to listen, however humiliating their answers might be.
The next morning, I searched for Megan. Shelters would not reveal her whereabouts, and the children’s hospital referenced in Russell’s note refused to provide Hazel’s location. Initially frustrated, I realized they were safeguarding a mother from a powerful man capable of coercing her. I respected their refusal. I had spent years believing my influence entitled me to answers, yet this time the protective silence was entirely justified. Megan had every reason to distrust what I might do if I found her unexpectedly.
Tammy, an employee at a community center who knew Megan, agreed to deliver a message. I explained that the divorce evidence had proved false and promised not to appear without permission. Two days later, Tammy arranged a meeting in a Nashville park.
Megan arrived pushing a borrowed stroller with the boys inside. One infant tried to remove his brother’s sock. I had rehearsed explanations, apologies, and questions, but seeing them erased every prepared sentence.
“Mason’s the one with the sock,” she said. “Bryce is the one getting mad.”
“Are they mine?”
Megan tightened her hands around the stroller.
“I was never with another man, Garrett. If you want legal certainty, take whatever test is appropriate. I’m not going to beg you to believe me again.”
She explained she’d been ten weeks pregnant when I expelled her. She’d planned to reveal the pregnancy that evening, before she knew she was carrying three babies. A later prenatal appointment confirmed the triplets. She continued working from a borrowed laptop until complications required bed rest. All three arrived prematurely.
“I called you when Hazel went into surgery,” she said. “Twice. At your office they said you didn’t want news from me.”
I remembered Tiffany controlling my appointments and screening callers.
“I never heard either of those calls.”
“I know that now. Back then I thought you’d chosen not to listen.”
Hazel had a congenital heart condition, underwent surgery in Memphis, and still required specialist observation. She temporarily stayed near the hospital with Gladys, a retired nurse volunteering through a family-support organization. Megan retained parental authority over every treatment decision, traveling between cities while caring for Mason and Bryce.
“I can pay for the treatment, the house, everything.”
“The treatment is covered,” she answered.
“By whom?”
“By your grandmother.”
Before our wedding, Megan had worked in auditing. My grandmother Josephine recruited her to examine a charitable foundation funding scholarships and pediatric healthcare. Megan discovered recurring consulting invoices without adequate explanations. Walter stopped responding when she sought the contracts. Only three weeks later, the alleged hotel photographs materialized. I’d known about the audit but had never connected it to the accusations.
Josephine had died four months before our park meeting. Shortly before her death, she’d asked me three times to visit and discuss Megan. I postponed each meeting because Tiffany warned against reopening old wounds. Realizing what I’d missed left me speechless.
“She came looking for me when I was pregnant,” Megan went on. “She didn’t believe the necklace story. She helped me get medical care and set up a trust for Hazel.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She tried to. You never went.”
No wealth could shield me from that shame. Megan showed me a photograph of Hazel: pale curls, a thin scar on her chest, and a delighted smile as she held a spoon before Josephine’s fireplace.
“That’s Hazel,” she whispered. “She’s alive. And she’s getting better.”
The child gazed trustingly toward someone outside the picture. Her smile and small surgical scar made the months I had missed seem painfully real, not merely dates on a report or information withheld by an investigator. I realized painfully that I had not yet earned such trust.
When I reached for the image, Megan kept hold of it.
“You’re not showing up with bodyguards or deciding where she’s going to live. First, prove you can respect a boundary.”
She then gave me a copy of Josephine’s letter, preserved by her estate lawyer. Josephine described the irregularities Megan had identified and Walter’s control over information from the foundation.
Her final instruction demanded an investigation into who financed the inquiry that ruined our marriage. Beneath it stood a bank-transfer reference and a signature I recognized instantly: Diane Sullivan, my mother.
