Chapter 10 - Maren Finally Answered the Phone
The call came the next morning.
Unknown number.
Mateo almost missed it.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a woman’s voice.
Older than he remembered.
Still unmistakable.
“Is Ellie okay?”
Mateo sat down.
“Maren.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes.”
A breath on the other end.
Not quite a sob.
“Does she hate me?”
Mateo closed his eyes.
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She asks about you.”
Silence.
Then:
“Celeste said you told her not to contact me directly.”
“I didn’t.”
“She said you returned my letters.”
“I never saw them.”
Maren began crying.
Mateo let her.
He did not fill the silence.
Finally:
“I thought you chose her.”
“What?”
“Before you were even together.”
Mateo frowned.
“Celeste kept saying you trusted her more because she was calmer.”
Mateo remembered saying:
“At least Celeste can have a conversation without walking out.”
He had said it during an angry phone call.
To Celeste.
Not intending it for Maren.
Celeste delivered it anyway.
Mateo swallowed.
“I said things about you that I’m ashamed of.”
Maren went quiet.
“I said things too.”
He almost laughed from pain.
“Apparently Celeste kept excellent notes.”
For the first time, Maren gave a tiny broken laugh.
Then the hardest part.
“Why didn’t you come home anyway?” Mateo asked.
Not accusation.
A question he had carried for years.
Maren answered:
“Because I thought Ellie was stable.”
“What?”
“Celeste sent pictures. School photos. Birthdays. She said every time Ellie started settling, my name made her anxious.”
Mateo felt sick.
“She told me the opposite. She said you didn’t want Ellie contacted.”
Maren whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Two parents.
Each believing absence protected the child.
Each receiving selected evidence from the same person.
Mateo told her about the yellow diary.
About the letters.
Not about every detail yet.
Then he said:
“Ellie wants to know you.”
Maren cried harder.
“Can I speak to her?”
Mateo looked toward the staircase.
Ellie was already there.
Standing halfway down.
Listening.
He did not make the decision for her.
He held out the phone.
“Do you want to?”
Ellie descended slowly.
Took it.
Pressed it to her ear.
“Mom?”
May you like
On the other end came a sound Mateo would remember for the rest of his life.
Maren saying her daughter’s name.
