Chapter 6 - WHAT EMILY REMEMBERED ABOUT SARAH’S LAST WEEK
Sarah’s condition declined quickly at the end.
The cancer had stopped responding to treatment.
She chose hospice care in the guest cottage because she wanted Noah nearby without making his daily life revolve around a hospital.
Daniel visited.
Just not as much as he wished he had now.
At the time, he believed Sarah wanted quiet.
Margaret told him Sarah was sleeping most of the day and becoming distressed after emotionally intense visits.
Emily remembered the opposite.
“Sarah asked for you almost every morning.”
Daniel stared at her.
They were sitting in the quiet club library with the ruined rabbit pieces still stored in a box nearby.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I’d call you.”
“Did you?”
Emily’s eyes filled.
“Your mother told me she was handling it.”
Daniel looked away.
Emily continued.
“I was twenty-six. I had been hired as a caregiver. Margaret was the family matriarch and basically ran everything. I thought if she said you knew, you knew.”
Daniel nodded.
“I understand.”
Three days before Sarah died, she asked Emily to help her record several short voice messages for Noah.
Those files still existed.
Emily had copied them to encrypted storage because Sarah wanted Noah to have them when he was older.
Daniel had never listened.
He wasn’t sure he could.
Then Emily mentioned something else.
Sarah recorded one message for Daniel.
Margaret knew about it.
“What happened to it?”
Emily swallowed.
“I gave the drive to Margaret because Sarah said she wanted it delivered when you were alone.”
Daniel stared.
“Did you keep a copy?”
Emily shook her head.
His face fell.
Then she added, “But Sarah wrote the same thing first.”
Daniel looked up.
“She was worried the recording would be too hard to finish. She wrote notes.”
“Where?”
Emily hesitated.
“Inside the rabbit.”
For a second Daniel did not understand.
Then he looked toward the box containing the torn toy.
“No.”
Emily nodded.
“The rabbit had a little interior pocket Sarah sewed inside years ago. She put a folded note in there. She told me, ‘If Daniel never gets the recording, Noah will eventually hand him the rabbit when he’s ready.’”
Daniel’s heartbeat changed.
Margaret had just cut the rabbit apart.
He opened the storage box immediately.
The toy had been torn badly.
Stuffing had scattered across the trophy lounge floor.
Staff had collected most of it, but nobody knew there might have been paper hidden inside.
Daniel returned to the lounge.
The room had been closed after the confrontation.
He went down on his knees.
Pearls still rolled beneath furniture.
White stuffing had been gathered into clear evidence bags by club counsel because of the altercation.
Daniel searched through the material carefully.
Nothing.
Then Emily found a small rectangle of yellowed paper wedged under the base of a leather chair.
It had been folded several times.
One edge had been cut by Margaret’s scissors.
Daniel unfolded it.
Sarah’s handwriting.
Only part of the note survived.
D—
If you ever wonder whether I wanted you there at the end, I did.
I know we hurt each other.
I know your mother thinks distance is kinder.
She is wrong.
Please don’t let Noah grow up believing love means disappearing when things become difficult.
The rest had been sliced through.
Daniel sat on the floor.
Emily turned away while he cried.
Margaret had spent years trying to make Sarah’s memory smaller.
May you like
In fifteen seconds of rage, she had almost destroyed the last message Sarah had left her husband.
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