Chapter 6 - The Father They Remembered Differently

Thomas had left behind no blue tin.

No archive.

No letters copied for history.

When Anna returned to his house four years after his death, she found almost nothing.

Paige went with her.

The house no longer belonged to Anna.

She had sold it after probate and used the money to start her cleaning company.

The new owners, a retired couple named the Harrisons, agreed to let Anna visit the garden after she explained why.

“You don’t have to come,” Anna said as they parked across the street.

Paige looked at the narrow stone house.

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“You’re quiet.”

“I’m looking at where you grew up.”

Anna followed her gaze.

“This was house number three.”

“How long?”

“Fourteen years.”

“That counts.”

Anna smiled faintly.

Mrs. Harrison met them at the gate.

She knew Anna only as the previous owner.

“This must be your friend,” she said.

Anna hesitated.

“My sister.”

The word came out unevenly.

Paige felt it physically.

Mrs. Harrison smiled.

“How lovely.”

Neither sister corrected her.

The garden was smaller than Paige expected.

Anna had described a long lawn.

It was barely twenty feet.

“The shed used to be there,” Anna said.

“What did Dad keep in it?”

“Everything. Tools. Paint. Broken radios he claimed he could fix.”

Paige smiled.

“Mom threw away anything broken after a week.”

“Dad kept it for twenty years.”

“Good separation, then.”

Anna laughed.

They walked to the back fence.

A small apple tree stood near the corner.

Anna touched the trunk.

“He planted this when I was ten.”

“It’s still here.”

“Yes.”

Paige looked at her.

“What did he tell you about Mom that year?”

Anna’s face tightened.

“You don’t waste time.”

“I can stop.”

“No.”

Anna sat on a stone bench.

“He said she was sick.”

“She was depressed then.”

“I know now.”

“What did he say?”

“That she loved me but couldn’t be a mother.”

Paige sat beside her.

“What did you ask?”

Anna stared at the apple tree.

“Why Paige could stay.”

Paige swallowed.

“What did he say?”

“That you were easier.”

The word hit harder than expected.

Paige looked away.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly.”

Anna leaned back.

“He used us against each other without either of us being in the room.”

“Yes.”

“I thought you were the easy child who got everything.”

“I thought you were the brave older sister who left and never missed us.”

Anna turned.

“Mom told you that?”

“No. That part I invented.”

“Why?”

“Because no one gave me enough information.”

They sat quietly.

Mrs. Harrison brought tea outside.

She returned a few minutes later carrying a small wooden box.

“I nearly forgot. This belonged to your father.”

Anna frowned.

“What?”

“It was in the loft after the sale. We tried to contact the estate agent, but they said everything remaining transferred with the property.”

Anna stared at the box.

“Why didn’t you throw it out?”

“My husband never throws anything out.”

Anna laughed.

“Dad would approve.”

Mrs. Harrison handed her the box.

Inside were screws, old coins, two keys, and a bundle of photographs held by an elastic band.

Anna’s hands stopped.

Paige saw the top photograph.

Helen.

Young.

Pregnant.

Laughing beside a car.

Anna lifted it.

“He kept this.”

Beneath it was another.

Paige as a baby in Thomas’s arms.

Another.

Both girls asleep on a sofa.

Another.

Helen and Thomas at a wedding.

Anna looked stunned.

“He kept them in a tool box.”

Paige touched the photograph of Thomas holding her.

“I have never seen this.”

“You look like a potato.”

“I was a baby.”

“Still.”

They smiled.

Then Anna found a folded paper.

It was not a letter.

It was a receipt from a private investigator.

Dated 2003.

Client: Thomas Reed.

Subject: Helen Reed / Paige Reed.

Paige stared.

“He searched for us.”

Anna looked confused.

“He knew where you lived.”

“Did he?”

“You stayed in the same house.”

“So why hire someone?”

Anna read the service description.

Employment confirmation.

School attendance.

Residential verification.

He had paid someone to confirm Helen and Paige still lived at the address he already knew.

Paige’s stomach tightened.

“Why?”

Anna shook her head.

There was another receipt.

2006.

Another.

2010.

Thomas had periodically checked them.

Not contacted.

Checked.

Anna looked sick.

“He watched too.”

Paige stared at the receipts.

“Helen watched you through an office window. Dad watched us through reports.”

“They were perfect for each other.”

The bitterness was immediate.

Paige looked at her.

Anna shook her head.

“Sorry.”

“No. Maybe they were.”

“Don’t romanticize it.”

“I’m not.”

Paige picked up the photograph of her parents laughing.

“They both chose information over contact.”

Anna went still.

The symmetry was unbearable.

Thomas accused Helen of abandoning him and then monitored her life from a distance.

Helen accused Thomas of withholding Anna and later watched Anna through glass without approaching.

Different motives.

Same cowardice.

Mrs. Harrison returned.

“Everything all right?”

Anna looked at the box.

“No.”

Then she smiled faintly.

“But thank you.”

On the drive home, they stopped at a roadside café.

Anna ordered tea.

Paige said, “No sugar.”

Anna looked at her.

“You remembered.”

“You said Dad’s warning about spoiling good tea.”

“He took one sugar.”

“What?”

“He lectured everyone else and took one sugar.”

Paige laughed.

“That is outrageous.”

“He was a hypocrite.”

The word held less venom than before.

Paige stirred her tea.

“Do you miss him?”

Anna looked out the window.

“Yes.”

“Even now?”

“Yes.”

“Does that feel wrong?”

“Sometimes.”

Paige nodded.

“I miss Mom.”

“Even now?”

“Yes.”

“Does that feel wrong?”

“Sometimes.”

Anna smiled sadly.

“Same evidence. Different verdict?”

“No. Same verdict.”

They drank tea.

After a while Anna said, “He was a good father sometimes.”

Paige waited.

“He taught me to ride a bike. He sat outside the bathroom when I had food poisoning at thirteen. He drove six hours when my first boyfriend dumped me at university.”

“You went to university?”

“For one year.”

“What happened?”

“I left.”

“Why?”

“Money.”

Paige said nothing.

Anna smiled bitterly.

“Here comes the guilt face.”

“I’m controlling it.”

“Poorly.”

Paige laughed.

Anna continued.

“He was not cruel every day. That is what makes it harder. If he had been terrible all the time, I could throw him away in my head.”

Paige understood.

“Mom was loving every day.”

Anna looked at her.

“And still failed me.”

“Yes.”

They sat with that.

The café radio played Fleetwood Mac.

Both women noticed.

Neither commented.

On the way back, Paige asked, “Do you want to see the investigator reports?”

Anna looked at the box on her lap.

“Not all.”

“Which ones?”

“The school one.”

“Why?”

“I want to know if he knew what you were doing.”

Paige’s chest tightened.

“He probably did.”

“I know.”

“Why does that matter?”

Anna looked at her.

“Because I spent years thinking you had forgotten me.”

Paige looked forward.

“I had.”

Anna went silent.

Paige forced herself not to soften it.

“Not completely. But by fifteen, sixteen? I stopped thinking of you as a real person. You were a childhood blur.”

Anna looked down.

“That hurts.”

“I know.”

“Thank you for saying it.”

Paige glanced at her.

“I don’t want us to build this on lies.”

Anna nodded.

“I forgot you too.”

Paige’s eyes filled.

“That hurts.”

“I know.”

They drove another mile.

Then Anna said, “Maybe forgetting was how we survived adults who kept telling us there was nothing to remember.”

Paige breathed out.

“Yes.”

Back at Helen’s house, they opened the 2003 investigator report.

It contained one photograph.

Paige, seventeen, leaving school with three friends.

Anna stared.

“That’s you.”

“Yes.”

“You had terrible hair.”

“I was seventeen.”

“Still.”

Paige laughed.

Then she read the note beneath the photograph.

Subject appears healthy. Remains resident with mother. No concerns observed.

Thomas had underlined healthy.

Anna stared at the blue ink.

“He knew.”

Paige looked at her.

“What?”

“That you were okay.”

“Yes.”

“He could have written.”

“Yes.”

Anna’s face crumpled.

Paige moved her chair closer.

Not touching.

Waiting.

Anna looked at her.

“You can hug me.”

Paige did.

It was awkward.

Too tight at first.

Then too careful.

Neither knew where arms went when you hugged a sister you had not known for thirty years.

Anna laughed into Paige’s shoulder.

“This is terrible.”

Paige laughed too.

“We’ll improve.”

“Don’t make promises.”

“Fine.”

They let go.

The investigator report remained on the table.

Proof that Thomas had known.

Not enough to understand him.

Enough to stop excusing the silence as ignorance.

Paige folded the report.

“We keep this too.”

Anna nodded.

“In the tin?”

Paige looked at her.

“No.”

Anna waited.

“We make a new box.”

“For what?”

“For things we find ourselves.”

Anna thought.

“Not Mum’s version.”

“Not Dad’s.”

“Ours.”

Paige nodded.

“Ours.”

Before starting the engine, Anna looked once more at the house.

“I used to think remembering Dad kindly meant betraying Mum.”

Paige nodded. “And now?”

“Now I think memory is allowed to be untidy.”

Paige smiled. “That may be the healthiest sentence anyone in this family has said.”

“Don’t tell Margaret. She’ll put it on a cushion.”

Paige laughed.

Anna did too, then grew serious.

“I want you to know something. If I talk about the good parts of him, I am not defending what he did to us.”

“I know.”

“And if you talk about loving Mum, you’re not asking me to forgive her.”

“I know.”

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Anna nodded.

That agreement, small as it was, gave them room to remember without turning every memory into testimony.