Chapter 4 - The Missing Pages

Nora called Evelyn three times.

Her sister did not answer.

That was unusual enough to become information.

Evelyn answered everyone, including telemarketers, delivery drivers, wrong numbers, and a dentist’s office that had been calling for someone named Lorraine since 2019.

Daniel sat at Nora’s kitchen table with the Thursday notebook open between them.

“Call again.”

“I have.”

“Text her.”

“I did.”

“What did you say?”

Nora turned her phone around.

Need to ask you about Samuel Greer and Paul. Call me.

Daniel looked up.

“That might explain why she isn’t answering.”

Nora narrowed her eyes.

“What should I have written?”

“Something less like a subpoena.”

Before Nora could reply, her phone rang.

Evelyn.

Nora answered immediately.

“Where are you?”

“At home.”

“Why didn’t you answer?”

“I was in the shower.”

“For forty minutes?”

“Some of us moisturize.”

Daniel covered a laugh.

Nora was not in the mood.

“Who is Samuel Greer?”

Silence.

Not confusion.

Silence.

Nora’s stomach tightened.

“You know.”

Evelyn sighed.

“Come over.”

“No. Tell me.”

“Nora.”

“Tell me.”

Another silence.

Then Evelyn said, “Samuel is Theresa Greer’s son.”

Nora searched the name.

It meant nothing.

“Who is Theresa Greer?”

Evelyn exhaled.

“Come over.”

Twenty minutes later, Nora and Daniel stood on Evelyn’s porch.

Evelyn opened the door wearing slippers and a robe over clothes. Her gray hair was pinned messily behind her head.

“You brought Daniel.”

“He brought himself.”

Daniel kissed his aunt’s cheek.

“I’m participating.”

Evelyn looked at Nora.

“What happened to him?”

“Growth.”

They sat in the den.

Nora did not accept tea.

“Start.”

Evelyn rubbed one thumb over the seam of her robe.

“Theresa Greer worked with me at the county clinic. Years ago.”

“How many years?”

“Twenty-six.”

Nora stared.

“Daniel was fourteen.”

“Yes.”

“What does that have to do with Paul?”

Evelyn looked toward Daniel.

“This is family business.”

Daniel laughed sharply.

“I am family.”

“Not all family business belongs to children.”

“I’m forty.”

“You’ll always be twelve to me.”

Nora leaned forward.

“Evelyn.”

Her sister looked at her.

Then she gave in.

“Theresa was leaving her husband. He was violent.”

The room changed.

Nora sat back.

Evelyn continued.

“She needed somewhere to keep documents. Bank records. Copies of police reports. A spare set of keys. Things she was afraid he would find.”

“And?”

“I asked Paul to help.”

Nora’s confusion deepened.

“Why Paul?”

“Because you were already overwhelmed with Mom.”

Their mother had been declining then.

Memory returned.

Hospital visits.

Medication.

Arguments about assisted living.

Nora had spent months believing Evelyn carried more than her share. Apparently everyone had been conducting hidden operations around her in the name of reducing her burden.

“What did Paul do?”

“He let Theresa store papers in the hardware shop. In a locked cabinet.”

Daniel said, “Dad knew a woman was trying to escape an abusive husband?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mom know?”

Evelyn looked at Nora.

“No.”

Nora stood.

“I need air.”

She walked to the back door and opened it.

Cold rain had stopped, leaving the porch boards dark and wet.

Evelyn followed.

“Nora, Theresa asked for privacy.”

“For twenty-six years?”

“No.”

“Then when did protecting her privacy become lying to me?”

Evelyn crossed her arms.

“You were caring for Mom. Daniel was having trouble at school. Paul was working overtime. Theresa’s husband had followed her to work twice. We made a decision.”

“We.”

“Yes.”

“You and my husband made a decision about what I could handle.”

Evelyn’s jaw tightened.

“Yes.”

The honesty hurt more than an excuse.

Nora looked across the small yard.

“Who is Samuel?”

“Theresa’s son. He was eight then.”

Nora turned.

“And Paul taught him piano later?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don’t know all of it. Theresa moved away. Years later Samuel came back for college. He found Paul at the hardware store.”

Nora thought of the carved names on the piano.

Samuel.

The fourth student.

“What does he know about you?”

Evelyn looked suddenly tired.

“He knows I helped his mother.”

“That’s it?”

“Mostly.”

Nora heard the word.

“Mostly?”

Evelyn sat on the porch chair.

“When Theresa left, she didn’t have enough money for the bus tickets.”

Nora closed her eyes.

“Paul.”

“Paul.”

“How much?”

“Three hundred dollars.”

“From where?”

“I don’t know.”

Nora laughed without humor.

“Apparently there was always money somewhere except when I knew about it.”

Evelyn flinched.

“Nora.”

“No. I get to be angry.”

“Yes.”

“I get to be angry at dead people and living people.”

“Yes.”

“I get to decide that helping someone can be good and hiding it from me can still be wrong.”

“Yes.”

Evelyn’s quick agreement removed the argument Nora had been prepared to fight.

She leaned against the porch rail.

“Why is there a note saying Samuel called and he knows about Evelyn?”

Evelyn looked confused.

“When was it written?”

“Late in Paul’s illness.”

Her sister’s face changed.

“What?”

“You really don’t know.”

“No.”

Nora believed her.

Daniel stepped onto the porch holding the notebook.

“There are pages missing.”

Evelyn took it.

She examined the torn edge.

“I never saw this.”

Nora asked, “Do you have Samuel’s number?”

“No.”

“Can you find it?”

“Maybe through the clinic records, but I won’t access private records.”

“Good.”

Daniel said, “We can ask Adrian.”

Adrian had Samuel’s old email.

By evening, an answer came.

Samuel would meet them the next day.

At the youth center.

He arrived fifteen minutes early.

Nora recognized him before Adrian introduced them because he walked directly to the piano and placed both palms on the closed lid.

Samuel was tall, broad-shouldered, and perhaps thirty-four. He wore work boots and a city transit jacket.

“You’re Nora,” he said.

“Yes.”

He looked at Daniel.

“And you’re Daniel.”

Daniel frowned.

“You know me?”

“Your dad had pictures.”

Of course he did.

They sat in the music room.

Evelyn came too.

The moment Samuel saw her, his eyes filled.

“Ms. Evelyn.”

Evelyn stood.

He hugged her.

Not politely.

Not briefly.

Evelyn made a sound Nora had never heard from her before and clung to him.

When they separated, Samuel wiped his face.

“My mother died last year.”

Evelyn covered her mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

“She talked about you until the end.”

Nora watched her sister absorb the words.

Samuel reached into his jacket.

“I think this is why you called.”

He took out two folded notebook pages.

Daniel stood.

“You have them.”

Samuel nodded.

“Paul gave them to me.”

Nora felt a familiar anger.

“Why?”

“He asked me to keep them until after he died.”

“Everyone got assignments except me.”

Samuel looked at her.

“That’s actually what these are about.”

He handed her the pages.

The writing was Paul’s.

October 17.

Samuel found me at St. Vincent’s. Evelyn’s name came up. He knew she helped Theresa leave. He wants to thank her, but Theresa made him promise not to contact anyone from that time while she was alive. I told him promises made for safety can become prisons after danger is gone.

October 24.

Talked with Samuel again. He is afraid gratitude will become debt. I understand that too well.

Nora read the next paragraph.

Need to tell Nora about all of this.

Not because she needs every secret.

Because I have made secrecy into a habit and called it protection.

She stopped.

The room blurred.

Daniel whispered, “Keep reading.”

Nora did.

November 2.

Did not tell her.

No excuse.

November 9.

Did not tell her.

No excuse.

November 16.

Tried. She came home exhausted. Daniel called about the insurance forms. I lost courage.

No excuse.

November 23.

I am running out of Thursdays.

Nora pressed the page flat on her knee.

For the first time since discovering Paul’s hidden life, she did not feel betrayed by a new secret.

She felt the weight of his failure to correct it.

That was different.

Worse in one way.

Kinder in another.

Paul knew.

Before he died, he understood the pattern that had hurt her.

He simply did not manage to break it.

Samuel spoke.

“He gave me the pages because he said if you found the notebook, you deserved the missing part.”

“Why not leave them in the notebook?”

“He said he was afraid he would change his mind and destroy them.”

Daniel shook his head.

“That sounds like him.”

Nora looked at Samuel.

“Why did you agree?”

Samuel took a long breath.

“Because I owed him.”

“No.”

Samuel blinked.

Nora folded the pages.

“That is exactly what he warned you about.”

Samuel looked toward the piano.

“He taught me for two years.”

“And?”

“And my mother could never repay what your family did.”

Evelyn moved closer.

“You don’t owe us.”

Samuel looked at her.

“You bought our bus tickets.”

Evelyn’s face paled.

“No.”

Nora turned.

Samuel continued.

“My mother told me before she died. Paul gave her money, but you bought the tickets.”

Nora stared at her sister.

Evelyn sat down heavily.

“I forgot that part.”

“You forgot?” Nora asked.

“I wanted to.”

The room went quiet.

Evelyn clasped her hands.

“I used Mom’s emergency cash.”

Nora’s breath stopped.

Their mother had kept five hundred dollars in a tin box beneath her socks.

Nora had noticed some was missing.

She had blamed their mother’s worsening memory.

“Oh, Evelyn.”

“I replaced it.”

“When?”

“Three months later.”

“You let me think Mom lost it.”

“I know.”

Nora closed her eyes.

Layer after layer.

Good deeds built on concealment.

Protection built on decisions someone else never agreed to.

Samuel said quietly, “My mother was alive because she left.”

No one argued.

That truth mattered too.

Nora opened her eyes.

“I’m glad you helped her.”

Evelyn looked at her.

“I’m still angry.”

“I know.”

“Both can be true.”

Evelyn nodded.

Tears slipped down her face.

Nora sat beside her.

For years, their family had treated honesty as a luxury that could be postponed whenever circumstances were difficult.

They had mistaken silence for strength.

Paul did it.

Evelyn did it.

Nora realized, with discomfort, that she had done it too.

She had hidden bills from Daniel.

She had told him treatment was manageable when it was not.

She had smiled at Paul when she was terrified because she did not want him to feel guilty for being sick.

Protection was not a habit Paul invented alone.

It was the family language.

Nora looked around the room.

“Then we change it.”

Daniel frowned.

“What?”

“The rule.”

“What rule?”

“The one where everyone decides what everyone else can handle.”

Evelyn wiped her face.

“That sounds difficult.”

“It probably is.”

Samuel laughed softly.

Nora held up the torn pages.

“No more noble secrets.”

Adrian, who had stayed mostly silent, raised a hand.

“What about birthday surprises?”

Nora looked at him.

“Case-by-case review.”

For the first time, everyone laughed.

Later, Samuel played the piano.

He played standing for part of it.

Nora noticed.

Paul’s notebook: Cannot sit still more than twenty minutes. Let him stand.

Samuel’s style was rougher than Adrian’s, more rhythmic, full of unexpected left-hand movement.

When he finished, he turned to Nora.

“Your husband told me music only mattered if it made room for someone else.”

Nora looked at the folding chairs, the crooked blinds, the old piano now carrying children’s fingerprints.

She thought about the Thursday Fund.

Half the money remained.

Not enough to change a city.

Enough to pay fees.

Enough for bus passes.

Enough to make room.

That evening, Daniel drove her home.

At the curb he did not turn off the engine.

“Mom.”

“Yes?”

“I need to tell you something.”

Nora waited.

He gripped the steering wheel.

“I talked to your landlord.”

She felt the old pattern rise immediately.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing without you.”

That answer stopped her.

“I asked whether you could stay another month if you wanted.”

Nora stared.

“Why?”

“Because I think I pushed you to move too fast.”

She looked at him.

He swallowed.

“I was afraid.”

“I know.”

“I’m still afraid.”

“So am I.”

He nodded.

“The apartment you’re moving to is cheaper, but you hate it.”

“I don’t hate it.”

“You called the kitchen a punishment.”

“It has one drawer.”

Daniel smiled.

Then his expression turned serious.

“I found another place.”

Nora stiffened.

“I didn’t sign anything.”

“Good.”

“I didn’t even schedule a tour.”

“Better.”

“I just found it.”

She waited.

“It’s above the youth center.”

Nora blinked.

“What?”

“There’s a small apartment in the old library caretaker’s wing. Mrs. Alvarez mentioned they were renovating it.”

Nora looked toward Weller Street in the distance.

Daniel continued.

“It’s cheaper than your current place. More expensive than the one you picked.”

“Of course.”

“It has four drawers.”

“Luxury.”

“And windows over the courtyard.”

Nora studied his face.

He was trying.

Not to solve.

To offer.

“Would you like to see it?” he asked.

The question mattered more than the apartment.

Nora smiled.

“Yes.”

Daniel’s shoulders relaxed.

“Tomorrow?”

“No.”

He caught himself.

“Right. When?”

“Saturday.”

“Saturday.”

He put the car in drive, then stopped.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad Dad taught them.”

Nora looked at him.

“So am I.”

“I’m still angry about the money.”

“So am I.”

Daniel nodded.

“Both can be true.”

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Nora smiled.

“Now you’re learning.”