It hit me even harder than the funeral ever did. On that particular night, I lured Grace into a trap. I told her that I came across a few financial documents from before that I missed and wanted her to go through them after dinner. She readily agreed. I observed her from the hallway as she opened the folder. Every bit of blood drained from her face.
She pulled out her phone and said, “She found it. Liam made copies.” I entered the room before she could utter another word. She slammed the phone down on the table. All we did was stare at each other in silence.
But she just started coming up with all sorts of excuses for what she did so quickly she was barely making sense. She was helping Ryan out, she was going to put it back, she was panicked, this was never meant to go down like this. And she kept on talking.
But when she finished speaking, I knew the one question that mattered. “Did you tell Ryan that Liam had the proof?” Silence followed my question, but then a small nod.
That was all there was to it.
“He was supposed to just scare him,” she whispered. “Emily, I swear I didn’t mean…”
“Liam is dead.”
She broke down crying. I didn’t cry. Not immediately. I think after being sucker punched like that, your mind waits a second before letting you cry in case you keel over.
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Liam’s lawyer knew everything. That part messed with me for weeks. My husband was setting up legal shields for us while acting completely normal at the dinner table.
Eventually, the cops found traffic camera footage that put Ryan right near the crash site that night. It wasn’t an accident.
Grace came around months later, bringing over boxes of Liam’s clothing that she had taken. She looked completely exhausted.
“I just needed something of him,” she said.
I stared straight at her. “You don’t get to miss him when you’re the one responsible for his death.”
She cried, but I couldn’t retract my statement. Some things needed to hurt.
Life became slow. The children threw difficult questions into the air. Once Ava climbed into my bed and asked me, “Did Daddy know we loved him?” I held her tightly. “Yes, every day.”
Sometime after that, I read his last letter to them. In his final goodbye, “Liam had written: If your mother is reading this, she survived. I know she will.”
One year after Liam died, I traveled back to the place of the accident, during a thunderstorm and torrential downpour. In the mud of the ground was a blue washer from his key chain, which Ava had painted.
I am not whole. However, I am still standing, and that is enough.
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Bored Daddy
Love and Peace
