“What is it?” I asked. She’d spent so much time trying to downplay the story, it had only managed to do the opposite. I was riveted.

“He said it was weird, but not in the way that I meant. He said it was unusual but that he had seen it before. And it wasn’t from being swept away underground.” An echo of Bennett’s words: That’s rare in a kid. Must’ve been incredibly painful. Was that why I didn’t remember? The pain causing that disconnect?

We stood in silence then, the only noise coming from the dog chewing a bone under the table.

“You didn’t report any of this?” I asked in just over a whisper.

“That? I couldn’t. And really, it was obvious the doctors and your mother weren’t seeing eye to eye by then. She worked in health care and had her own opinions on things. They saw her as an impediment toward your treatment, so I’d take all that with a grain of salt.”

“I remember. She didn’t like the doctors. Said they weren’t interested in fixing me.”

“Your mother stopped bringing you to the follow-up appointments. And then there was some talk from other medical professionals that, to hear your mother discuss it, your history of sleepwalking didn’t fit any sort of profile. That she was maybe straining the truth, whether intentional or not.”

I remembered Dr. Cal saying it would’ve been unusual that a doctor had given me medicine to stop the episodes. Maybe it hadn’t been their idea. Maybe my mother had demanded it. She’d always believed what she needed to believe.

“Well, look,” Emma continued, “it’s just one thing. And that doctor was sort of a jerk. The more he drank, the more outrageous he became. At one point he said he thought you were lying, too. And that’s when I decided he was an asshole. You were six years old. What child knows how to lie straight-faced to adults like that?”

“Lying about what?”

She shook her head. “That you couldn’t remember anything. Not a thing, for three days, until Sean Coleman looked down into that grate and grabbed your wrist.”

“I really don’t,” I said, and she nodded. Maybe I did back then, but there was no unearthing it now. Just the darkness and the cold, the walls, the stagnant water. I got a chill even now, and took a bite of the sandwich to chase it away.

“God, I remember that moment so well,” she said. “The moment I saw your arm. Still gives me goose bumps.” One more drink, the level in her cup draining rapidly. How long had this story been living inside Emma Lyons, waiting to come out? “When a story gets to be this big, people come out of the woodwork. People want to tell you things. They want to take people down with their envy. Nathan Coleman was one of them—someone jealous of the opportunities that came after, for you, for your family. Not for him. His father had no interest in the media, and the media didn’t know what to do with him, either. Too quiet, too soft-spoken. He shied from it all. I think Nathan just wanted a piece of what his father declined to be part of.”

But I was a commodity. Even my mother had treated me as such, wanted to seize the opportunities we had. Nathan should be glad he wasn’t made into a national talking point. He had no idea what his family had avoided. The things people would say about his father. How people would treat him differently if they knew the truth.

“Other people came forward?” I asked.

“With money like that in play? Of course. A lot of people were jealous after. Saying your mother hit the lottery. Look, I think if you’ve been through what she had, you deserve it. Took a few years off her life, I’m guessing.”

“She’s dead,” I said.

Emma put her glass down on the table. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. What happened?”

“Overdose.”

She paced around the table, eyes narrowed at something she saw out in the road. She paused for a moment before shaking her head and continuing. “Can’t say I’m surprised, unfortunately. She’d been let go of several jobs for that reason, as far as we could tell. Those were the other stories we chose not to air. Irrelevant, really. Former employers saying she’d been dismissed.”

“For what?” I asked. It seemed suddenly, painfully important.

“Rumors, mostly. A prescription that had gone missing. A forged refill signature. Petty infractions that had nothing to do with you or your rescue.”

I felt the immediate need to leave. She dropped these facts as afterthoughts, but they were the little things that mattered, that shifted my understanding. Not of what happened in Widow Hills but of my mother. That it wasn’t the media, or even the precipitating event, that had sent my mother down the path of no return. That she had always been this person.

“She was an addict before it happened?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Maybe. A high-functioning one, if so.”

“Selling, then.”

She shrugged, which was my answer. My mother had done whatever she needed to do. She’d survived. Sold a prescription, sold a book, sold my story. Sold our things when the cash ran out.

“You never dug deeper,” I said. Not accusing, just stating a fact. “With all those little questions?”

“No. I saw what happened after the ten-year programming. That was bad enough. Imagine if people found out the whole thing was a fraud?”

The word hung in the air, louder than necessary. It echoed off the walls, and Emma’s eyes widened, like she wanted to take it back.

It was the first time she gave voice to the thing I had feared. That this was what Nathan had believed, and the pile of documents was the evidence he’d been accumulating for years. That the story was not at all what it seemed.

“It would ruin me,” I said. All the people who had watched, and prayed, and dedicated themselves to my safe return.

“It would ruin all of us, honey,” she whispered.

“Do you think Nathan Coleman is going to come forward with all of this?”

“If he does, I’d do the same thing I did ten years ago and ignore it. There’s nothing to corroborate it, so it doesn’t matter.”

I closed my eyes. “I remember,” I said, and I felt everything in the room stop moving. “Not all of it. But I remember the cold and the dark. I can’t stand enclosed places.”

She nodded. “Of course,” she said. “And you survived it. So let’s let this go. There’s no good that comes of it now.”

“Except,” I said, “Sean Coleman is dead.”

She frowned, and I could see all the questions rising to the surface.

“He died outside my house. And with everything you told me, it sounds like some people might think I have a pretty good motive.”

She stepped closer, so close I could smell the vodka on her breath. “Oh, honey, don’t you see? If this is really what it’s about, we all have a motive.” Her cold hands at my elbows, fingers pressing tight. “And if it comes out, we will all fall down.”

VOICEMAIL TRANSCRIPTS

AUGUST 27, 2020

NATHAN COLEMAN

9:13 A.M.

I feel we left things in a weird place. Driving by your place and would love to talk. I don’t see your car. Are you at work?

BENNETT SHAW