Chapter 3 - The Children Upstairs
For three years, I had imagined Roman Calder forgetting me.
The letters suggested something much worse.
He had remembered.
Martha placed the wooden box on the library table.
Roman approached first.
He picked up the top envelope.
His handwriting covered the front.
Mrs. Evelyn Calder
Grayhaven Manor
Harbor Road
Lake Erie, New York
The postmark was January 18.
Three weeks after he abandoned me.
The envelope had never been opened.
It had also never reached a mailbox.
Roman stared at it.
“Where did you find these?”
“The old service passage.”
Martha looked shaken.
“We were repairing plaster near the east staircase. Caleb opened the wall.”
“How many?”
“Thirty-two.”
My chest tightened.
Thirty-two letters.
I looked at Roman.
“You wrote thirty-two times?”
“Apparently.”
I hated the weakness hidden inside apparently.
“Open one,” Martha said.
Roman didn’t move.
So I did.
The paper inside was heavier than ordinary stationery.
Roman’s handwriting was precise.
Evelyn,
The Detroit negotiations will take longer than expected. Grayhaven’s monthly allowance has been increased. Martha should receive confirmation by Friday.
I realize the condition of the house was unacceptable.
I should have inspected it before bringing you there.
I stopped reading.
Roman looked away.
The letter continued.
There was no apology.
Roman in those days apparently treated remorse as a contagious disease.
But there was concern.
A second letter asked whether the windows had been repaired.
A third mentioned my lungs.
A fourth instructed me to contact a particular physician in Buffalo if I had another severe attack.
A fifth contained something astonishing.
I regret what I said when I left.
I read that sentence twice.
Then I looked up.
“You regretted something?”
Roman’s expression was grim.
“Occasionally.”
Martha snorted.
I opened another.
Then another.
The tone changed over time.
January: formal.
February: frustrated.
March: angry.
Why are you refusing to respond?
By April:
If this is punishment, I understand it.
If something is wrong, contact me directly.
In May:
Victor says you have requested no contact.
I will respect that, but Grayhaven remains funded.
Then the letters stopped.
I looked at Roman.
“He told you I wanted no contact.”
“Yes.”
“He told me you didn’t care if I froze.”
Roman’s mouth flattened.
Victor had not merely lied.
He had constructed two separate realities.
In mine, Roman had abandoned me without another thought.
In Roman’s, I had apparently rejected every attempt he made to communicate.
Neither version excused what happened.
He still left.
He still failed to come personally.
But hatred was easier when I believed he had never looked back.
Oliver appeared in the doorway.
“Are we allowed in?”
I turned.
He and Lucy stood together.
Maple sat between them.
“School.”
“Snow day.”
I glanced outside.
Apparently Lake Erie had decided education was optional.
Lucy looked at Roman.
“Is he staying?”
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Roman said at exactly the same moment.
I glared at him.
Oliver looked delighted by the conflict.
“Which one?”
Roman addressed me.
“I’m staying until we secure Grayhaven.”
“You’re not staying in this house.”
“I own thirty-eight percent of it.”
“No, you don’t.”
His eyebrows rose.
“According to the original deed—”
“I own sixty-two percent.”
“That is not how marital property works.”
“It is when the Calder Family Trust transfers abandoned residential holdings.”
Roman stopped.
Martha smiled.
I had been waiting for that moment.
“What did you do?” Roman asked.
“Read.”
“Dangerous habit.”
“Your grandfather’s trust contains a provision requiring Calder residences to remain occupied and maintained.”
“I know.”
“Do you know subsection fourteen?”
Silence.
Of course he didn’t.
Roman probably had attorneys for subsections.
“If an assigned family residence is abandoned by its registered Calder beneficiary for more than twenty-four consecutive months, controlling interest transfers to the spouse or dependent maintaining the property.”
His face became very still.
“How did you find that?”
“Boredom.”
Martha corrected me.
“Rage.”
“Both.”
Oliver whispered to Lucy, “She owns him.”
“I do not own him.”
Lucy frowned.
“Why would you want to?”
Roman actually laughed.
It startled all of us.
Not a polite sound.
A real laugh.
It disappeared almost immediately.
But I had heard it.
So had the children.
Their suspicion weakened by perhaps two percent.
Roman crouched slightly so he wasn’t towering over them.
“I’m Roman.”
Oliver nodded.
“We know.”
“Apparently.”
Lucy studied the tattoo visible above his shirt collar.
“Are you a criminal?”
I choked.
Roman blinked.
“No.”
“Caleb said men who dress like that are either criminals or bankers.”
Roman considered this.
“Banker is probably more insulting.”
Oliver laughed.
That was Roman’s first victory at Grayhaven.
Small.
Unwanted.
But real.
The children disappeared into the kitchen after Martha promised pancakes.
Roman watched them go.
“You seem happy.”
It wasn’t an accusation.
That made the words more difficult.
“I am.”
His eyes remained on the doorway.
“Without me.”
“You made sure I learned how.”
He nodded once.
Then returned to the letters.
Near the bottom of the box, we found envelopes that were not addressed to me.
They were addressed to Roman.
My handwriting.
My stomach dropped.
The eleven letters I had mailed.
Every one.
Somebody had intercepted both directions.
Roman opened the first.
I remembered writing it while wearing fingerless gloves because the library had been forty-eight degrees.
Roman,
The estate account no longer works.
We have enough heating oil for approximately four days.
I have contacted your office repeatedly.
If this is intentional, at least have the courage to tell me yourself.
Evelyn
He read it silently.
Then the second.
Then the third.
By the fourth, his face had changed.
Roman was not a man whose emotions escaped easily.
But rage lived in the stillness around him.
“Victor had access to Grayhaven?”
“Martha?”
She shook her head.
“Not officially.”
“What does that mean?”
“There used to be staff connected to Calder Holdings. A driver occasionally. Maintenance people. Security.”
Roman turned.
“Who handled mail?”
“Mr. Keene’s office arranged collection for the first six months.”
Martin Keene.
The dead attorney who had supposedly notarized Roman’s forged loan.
Another connection.
Roman gathered the letters.
“We need Keene’s records.”
“His office closed after he died.”
“The files went somewhere.”
“How do you know?”
“Lawyers never destroy anything useful.”
I glanced at the children through the doorway.
Oliver was trying to flip a pancake.
Martha was shouting instructions.
Lucy was feeding Maple something beneath the table.
For three years, I had built a life in the empty space Roman left.
Now his return threatened to pull every old wound open.
But Grayhaven was no longer just mine.
It belonged to those children too.
To Caleb.
To Martha.
To everyone who had needed a temporary home.
I looked at the foreclosure documents.
“We find Keene’s files.”
Roman nodded.
“But understand something.”
“What?”
“If saving Grayhaven requires trusting you, we have a problem.”
His expression softened.
“I’m not asking you to trust me.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking you to watch me.”
That answer stayed with me.
Later that afternoon, Roman drove into Buffalo to contact Keene’s former law partner.
I remained at Grayhaven.
Around four, Oliver found me in the office.
He climbed into the chair opposite mine.
“Do you hate him?”
Children never approached anything sideways.
“I’m angry with him.”
“That’s different?”
“Sometimes.”
He picked at a loose thread on his sleeve.
“Is he going to make us leave?”
My heart tightened.
“No.”
“You promise?”
I reached across the desk.
“Listen to me. You and Lucy are not losing your home.”
He nodded.
Then he looked toward the door.
“He looked sad.”
“Roman?”
“When you said you were happy without him.”
I didn’t answer.
Oliver left.
At seven-thirty, Roman returned.
Snow covered his shoulders.
He carried a banker’s box.
Martha locked the front door behind him.
“Keene’s partner kept archived client files,” Roman said.
“You got them?”
“Some.”
We spread the folders across the library table.
Corporate agreements.
Trust documents.
Loan records.
Then I found a folder labeled HART HOSPITALITY GROUP.
My hands went cold.
Inside was a memo dated two months before my wedding.
Martin—
Hart does not know the Calder debt was already satisfied.
Do not release the satisfaction documents.
Marriage arrangement proceeds as discussed.
V.
I read it twice.
Roman stood beside me.
Neither of us spoke.
My father had married me off to settle a debt that no longer existed.
But according to this memo, he hadn't known.
Victor had known.
Martin Keene had known.
And someone else had approved the arrangement.
At the bottom of the page was a handwritten note.
R.C. agrees.
I looked at Roman.
His initials.
He stared at the note.
“That isn’t my handwriting.”
“Convenient.”
“It isn’t.”
Before I could respond, Martha called from the doorway.
“There’s a car outside.”
Roman looked toward the window.
A black sedan had stopped beyond the gates.
Its headlights remained on.
“Expecting anyone?” he asked.
“No.”
The driver’s door opened.
A man stepped into the snow.
Roman’s entire expression changed.
“Who is it?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said one name.
“Victor.”
The man who had spent three years keeping husband and wife apart had finally come to Grayhaven himself.
May you like
And he wasn’t alone.
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