Chapter 7: What Daniel Didn't Know She Already Knew
Rachel found Diane before Daniel's attorney did.
It wasn't difficult.
Ellen Marsh had worked in that hospital for eleven years.
She knew the name, the approximate age, the town.
She made two phone calls on Rachel's behalf and came back with an address.
Diane Calloway lived forty minutes north, in a small house at the end of a gravel road, with a vegetable garden along the front fence and a dog that barked twice and then went quiet.
Rachel drove alone.
She left Maya with Carol.
She sat in the car at the end of the driveway for a long time.
Then she got out.
The woman who answered the door was younger than Rachel had expected.
Mid-thirties.
Dark hair pulled back.
She was wearing paint-stained jeans and holding a mug, and when she saw Rachel her face did something complicated — not surprise, exactly.
More like the expression of someone who had been waiting for a knock they always knew was coming.
"You're Rachel," Diane said.
"Yes."
Diane looked past her at the empty car.
"Is she with you?"
"No."
Diane stepped back from the door.
"Come in."
The house was small and lived-in.
Books on every surface.
A half-finished canvas on an easel near the window.
Diane cleared a stack of papers from the second chair at the kitchen table and sat down across from her.
"He told you I signed willingly," Diane said.
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"That's true." Diane wrapped both hands around her mug.
"I did sign.
I want you to know that.
I was twenty-nine, I had no money, I had just ended things with Daniel, and I was terrified." She paused.
"But I signed because he told me you knew.
He told me the two of you had discussed it.
That you couldn't have children and you both wanted to raise her together and I was doing something kind."
The room was very quiet.
"He told you I knew," Rachel said.
"Yes."
"I didn't know."
"I understand that now."
Rachel looked at the canvas near the window.
A field.
Wide sky.
Something peaceful in it that felt very far away from this kitchen.
"Did you want to keep her?" Rachel asked.
Diane was quiet for a moment.
"I wanted to be able to," she said finally.
"That's not the same thing.
I was in no position to give her what she needed.
I knew that." She looked down at her mug.
"But if I had known that you didn't know — that you had no idea — I never would have signed.
I would have found another way."
"He lied to both of us," Rachel said.
"Yes."
"And now he's telling me there's something about you I don't know.
Something that changes everything.
He sent me a text this morning."
Diane's expression shifted.
"What does that mean?" Rachel asked.
"What is he planning to use?"
Diane set her mug down.
"Three years ago I had a breakdown," she said quietly.
"I was hospitalized for six weeks.
It's documented.
He knows about it because I made the mistake of telling him when we were still in contact, when I was trying to explain why I hadn't been in a position to fight for her." She looked at Rachel steadily.
"He's going to try to use it to argue that I'm unstable.
That any claim I make is unreliable."
Rachel felt the anger move through her like heat.
"He's going to use your mental health history to discredit you."
"That would be my guess."
"Even though you're not the one making a claim.
I am."
"He'll use it to discredit anything connected to me.
The document.
Ellen.
The original birth record." Diane's voice was steady but her hands had tightened around the mug.
"He's going to try to make this about the two of us being unstable women with a grudge."
Rachel looked at her.
"Do you have documentation of your recovery?
Discharge records, follow-up care, anything current?"
"Yes.
All of it."
"Then you need to call Patricia Hale." Rachel took the card from her bag and set it on the table.
"She's my attorney.
She needs to hear everything you just told me before Daniel's lawyer gets to frame the story."
Diane looked at the card.
"You'd want me involved in this?"
"You're already involved," Rachel said.
"He made sure of that four years ago.
The only question is whether we're on the same side."
Diane picked up the card.
Outside, the dog barked once at something in the garden and went quiet again.
"He called me last night," Diane said.
"After he found out you'd left.
He said if I stayed out of it, he'd make sure I had visitation.
Supervised.
Once a month."
Rachel went still.
"He offered you a deal."
"Yes."
"And?"
May you like
Diane looked up.
"I haven't called him back," she said.
