Chapter 5 - The Woman Margaret Buried Alive
Daniel did not go to Montana immediately.
First, he changed the locks.
Then he installed new cameras.
Then he hired a postpartum nurse recommended by Emily’s surgeon.
Then he filed for a protective order barring Margaret from the house, Emily, and Noah.
Then he called the number listed beside Lydia’s address.
It was disconnected.
He hired an investigator named Mara Bell, who found Lydia Hart within forty-eight hours.
She was alive.
Sixty-one.
Owner of a small pottery studio in Willow Creek.
No criminal history.
No institutional record.
No history of abandoning children.
Daniel read the report in the nursery at 1 a.m. while Noah slept and Emily breathed softly in the bedroom.
Alive.
His mother was alive.
He did not know how to feel something that large.
So he sat on the floor beside the crib and whispered it to his son.
“She’s alive.”
Noah opened one eye, unimpressed by generational revelation, then went back to sleep.
Two days later, Daniel called.
A woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Lydia Hart Studio.”
Her voice was warm.
A little rough.
Human.
Daniel could not speak.
“Hello?” she said.
He closed his eyes.
“My name is Daniel Mercer.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
On the other end of the line, something fell and broke.
Not glass.
Clay, maybe.
Then Lydia whispered, “Danny?”
No one had called him Danny since he was small.
Margaret hated nicknames.
They made children “soft.”
Daniel pressed his hand over his mouth.
“I found the letters,” he said.
Lydia began to cry.
Not loudly.
Not asking anything.
Just grief finally finding the person it had been walking toward for thirty-six years.
“I didn’t leave you,” she said.
“I know.”
“I tried.”
“I know.”
“Your father—”
“I know enough.”
She breathed shakily.
“Do you have children?”
“A son. Noah. He’s twelve days old.”
Another silence.
Then Lydia said, “Is your wife safe?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
That was the question.
Not can I meet him?
Not why now?
Not what did Margaret say?
Is your wife safe?
“She is now,” he said.
Lydia understood before he explained.
“Margaret?”
“Yes.”
A sound came through the phone.
Not surprise.
Old fear.
Then Lydia said, “She always starts when a woman is too tired to fight.”
Daniel looked toward the bedroom where Emily slept.
“She will not touch my family again.”
Lydia’s voice softened.
“Then you are already doing better than your father.”
The sentence was not cruel.
It was true.
May you like
That made it hurt more.
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