Page 14 of The Liar I Married

TWELVE

Waiting for probate to go through is like spending time at the dentist’s office.

I’m expecting something bad to happen although everyone is telling me it will be okay.

I’ve been back to Stonebridge Manor once a week for the last three weeks and I find myself here again today.

I started my search in my grandmother’s bedroom, spending hours going meticulously through every nook and cranny.

I even looked under the mattress, to find some type of a clue to what the letter referred to.

Everything of value is inside one of the two safes in the house but until probate goes through, I am unable to obtain the combination from the lawyer to open them.

I did however manage to question him on the contents.

I insisted I wasn’t concerned about any valuables, but my grandmother’s letter had mentioned perhaps a diary or some personal letters, I needed to read.

There are a number of documents inside both safes but mostly involve the running of the estate.

Everything else would be included in an audit, to enable estate taxes to be paid.

My grandmother was very intelligent and she would have known any access to the safes would be limited once she died, so I could only imagine she’d left something within the walls of Stonebridge Manor that held the information I was looking for.

The family room has yielded nothing of interest and I’d move my way to the office, picking up and reading every scrap of paper including old newspapers I’d found tied up with string in a corner.

Grandma didn’t trust computers and refused to have a mobile phone.

For me that is a relief more than a problem for I have absolutely no idea how to break into a computer.

I walk into the library and throw open all the blinds.

Behind me, the housekeeper, Mrs. Jarvis, is watching me in dismay.

I turn to look at her. “Will you please open some of the windows? It’s very stuffy in here. ”

I start on the desk, methodically going through everything but find nothing of interest. I turn and look at the rows of books on the shelves behind me.

If Grandma hid something there, it will take me a year to find it.

I stand in the middle of the room, slowly scanning each shelf one by one, looking for anything out of place.

My attention moves to the bottom shelf over in the corner closest to the window, and I notice a small brown abnormality.

I head for it and ease out a leather-bound diary.

It is squeezed between an encyclopedia and the end of the bookshelf.

I flick it open and fist punch the air when I see my grandma’s handwriting flowing across the pages. I’ve found it!

I sit at the small desk and a mixture of excitement and trepidation crawls over me.

The diary covers five years; it will take me an age to read.

I consider my options. If my grandmother had discovered something terrible, wouldn’t she have told somebody?

Why did she wait until she was on her deathbed before she mentioned it?

So whatever happened must have happened in the last year.

I find the page and start moving forward.

Most things are day-to-day entries. Local gossip and her meetings with the book club.

As I get to six months before her stroke, the writing changes and becomes a little erratic.

I was in the office today when the phone rang.

It was a woman looking for Joseph. She spoke to me as if I were his secretary.

He wasn’t here and I offered to take a message.

She said her daughter, Emily, had taken a fall from a swing and was in the E.R.

She insisted the moment he walked in the door he was to come at once.

I was too dumbfounded to question her, and if she hadn’t used the name Joseph, I would have considered she’d called the wrong number but I did make a note of the phone number. I might be old but I’m not stupid.

I ran my finger over the phone number; it was local. I move back to the pages, unable to believe what I was reading.

When Joseph arrived, I followed him into the office and closed the door behind us.

I asked him if he’d been cheating on Dawn.

The look he gave me terrified me. I thought he might strike me.

When he asked me why I would ask him such a question, I told him about the message and he sprung to his feet and ran out of the door.

I stare at the writing and swallow hard.

My father had cheated on my mother. Had she suffered the same way as I am suffering now?

Are we both just doormats for men to wipe their feet on?

I believed my parents were happy. They are planning to buy a condo in Miami, or so I thought.

I stare at the wall, trying to get my thoughts into order.

Come to think of it, it’s my mother who wants to buy the condo.

My father prefers life here, and he’d mentioned, during a discussion in front of the family, that starting afresh at their time of life was a mistake as all their friends were here in Connecticut. I move my attention back to the diary.

After seeing the guilt written all over his face, I couldn’t stand the sight of him any longer.

The next time he walked through the door I told him he was fired.

I said I would tell the family that he’d decided to retire.

Again I saw the anger in his face and it chilled me to the bone.

I asked for more information from him about the child but he refused, saying I was a confused old lady who was just trying to make trouble.

Today I called a private detective and he came to see me right away.

I gave him the details and the phone number plus a substantial retainer.

I needed to know everything about Joseph’s affair and daughter.

His name is Jim McCloud and his number is in my phone book.

I read fast, turning the pages, sifting through the day-to-day entries until I find more information about my father.

I have all the information I need to confront him.

Photographs of him with a woman young enough to be his daughter and a child.

He has set them up in an apartment in Manhattan no less, using funds syphoned from my estate.

He is coming later today. I will insist he tells Dawn and I’ll tell him, he’ll never get another cent from me.

Horrified, I can’t believe my eyes. My loving caring father has another family he’s kept secret for years.

Shocked, I read it again and note this entry was written two days before the letter she’d given to the lawyer.

I turn the page to find it empty. I push both hands through my hair and my stomach twists.

There must be more information. I turn the pages back and forth but find nothing.

My heart races at the implications. That last entry was written the day Grandma suffered the stroke.