I waited four days before calling Grace.
During those days I went to work.
I answered emails.
I bought groceries.
I spoke to a client about an overdue invoice.
Nobody knew that the entire shape of my marriage had changed.
On the fourth afternoon, I dialed the number from the letter.
A woman answered with a tired voice.
"Hello?"
"Is this Grace Morgan?"
"Yes."
"I'm Megan Lewis."
She went silent.
Then she said my name with a kind of relief that made me angry.
"Thank you for calling."
"Please don't thank me yet."
"Of course. I'm sorry."
I stood beside the window and watched a neighbor rake leaves.
I had written six questions on a notepad.
My hand shook as I read the first.
"How do you know Paul was Ivy's father?"
Grace didn't sound surprised.
"Hannah had a paternity test done when Ivy was little. I have a copy of the result."
"Can I see it?"
"Yes."
"And did Paul know?"
A long pause.
"Yes."
I gripped the phone.
"How long?"
"As far as I know, from the time Ivy was three."
I looked at the calendar above the sink.
That would have given him almost two years with the knowledge before his death.
Two years of Sunday breakfasts with me.
Two years of paying the mortgage.
Two years of discussing whether we should try for a baby.
"Was he having an affair with Hannah?"
Grace spoke slowly.
"Hannah told me they were together briefly during a period when Paul was traveling for work. It was years before he died. She ended the relationship before Ivy was born."
My stomach tightened.
Paul had spent six months helping open a repair shop in another county.
He came home on weekends.
We argued then.
Not about another woman.
About his hours, his exhaustion, and the way he became silent whenever I asked what was wrong.
I had blamed the distance.
I closed my eyes.
"I want the documents."
"I can send photographs first and copies by mail."
"I don't want to meet anyone yet."
"I understand."
I almost hung up.
Then I heard a child laughing somewhere behind her.
The sound went straight through me.
"Is she there?"
"Yes. She's doing homework."
"Does she know you called me?"
"She knows I hoped we could speak. I haven't told her whether you would want contact."
"Good. Please don't promise her anything."
"I won't."
I sat down.
Grace continued in a low voice.
"Hannah didn't tell you because she thought Paul should. He kept saying he needed time."
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"Time."
"I know."
"You don't know."
"You're right. I don't."
That answer stopped me.
I had expected her to defend Hannah.
Instead she let me be angry.
I asked about the black bag.
Grace explained that Hannah had packed it as her health declined.
She wanted Ivy to have Paul's letters, photographs, and a few belongings.
The rabbit had belonged to Ivy when she was small.
Paul had repaired one ear after their first meeting.
Grace had planned to bring it to the grave, let Ivy choose what to leave, then take the rest home.
But Ivy saw another family nearby and panicked.
Grace went to comfort her and lost track of the bag.
When she returned, I had already gone to the office.
"Why not leave the letter with the office?" I asked.
"I should have. I was upset. I'm sorry."
We agreed that she would email the documents.
I gave her an address I used for personal correspondence.
After the call I wrote down everything Grace had said.
Dates.
Names.
The laboratory on the test.
The county where Hannah had lived.
I wanted facts I could hold still.
Then I searched the kitchen drawers for our old calendar from the year Ivy was conceived.
I found the box in the hall closet.
I had kept tax papers, utility bills, and holiday cards in it.
There was a receipt from a hotel in the county Grace had mentioned.
Paul had stayed there during the repair-shop assignment.
My name wasn't on the reservation.
That proved nothing by itself.
It proved he had been where Grace said.
When Claire came by that evening, I showed her the receipt.
"You don't need to build a case against a dead man," she said gently.
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Find out what you need to know. Not everything there is to know."
I hated that distinction.
I also understood it.
That night Grace sent six files.
The first was a scanned report.
The next was a copy of Ivy's birth certificate.
Then there were photographs of Paul at a playground, in a diner, and beside a small Christmas tree.
He was wearing his wedding ring in all three.
The final file was a letter from Paul to Hannah.
The subject line read, I will tell Megan after the holidays.
The date was six weeks before his accident.
Before calling Grace, I had searched for her name online.
I felt embarrassed about it.
But I needed some reason to believe she existed.
I found a local charity newsletter with a picture of a woman named Grace Morgan volunteering at a school fair.
The photo was several years old.
It wasn't proof of anything beyond a familiar name.
Still, I saved the link and wrote the date in my notebook.
I didn't contact her employer.
I didn't message her friends.
I knew curiosity could become intrusion quickly.
On the day of our call, I cleaned the kitchen first.
I wiped the counter.
I sorted the recycling.
I cleaned a window that had needed attention for months.
I recognized the behavior.
It was what I did before doctor's appointments.
My hands wanted to finish something because my mind could not.
After Grace told me about the test, I asked whether Hannah had ever pursued a court order.
Grace wasn't certain.
She said there had been legal discussions but she didn't have every document in front of her.
"I'll check before I tell you something wrong," she said.
It was a small sentence.
It made me trust her more than a confident explanation would have.
I asked how Ivy had known about Paul's death.
Grace said Hannah told her gradually, with the help of a counselor when Ivy was old enough to ask harder questions.
I was relieved she hadn't invented a story about him moving away.
"She knows he didn't choose to die," Grace said.
"That's important."
"Yes."
We were quiet for a moment.
Then Grace asked if I wanted to know what Ivy called him.
I nearly said no.
"Dad," she answered.
The word hit me with unexpected force.
I had said husband for years.
Someone else had been saying Dad.
I remembered standing in our bathroom with a negative pregnancy test.
Paul had knocked softly and asked if I wanted tea.
I had said I wanted to be alone.
He had left a cup outside the door anyway.
Now I wondered whether he had gone to visit Ivy that same week.
I couldn't know.
I needed to stop constructing memories from guesses.
After the call, I wrote FACTS on one side of a notebook page.
On the other I wrote QUESTIONS.
Under facts, I listed what Grace had documented.
Under questions, I put everything that still needed checking.
The two columns were not equally long.
That didn't make the shorter column unimportant.
The next day I walked around the block without my phone.
The wind was cold.
A neighbor waved from her porch.
I waved back.
For ten minutes I did not think about the email waiting on my computer.
Then I went home and opened it.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: The Letter Paul Never Sent Me Became Harder to Bear Than the Photographs
The Black Canvas Bag Beside Paul’s Headstone Held a Photograph I Had Never Seen
Part 3 of 16
