He Made Her His Old Lady. I Took His Baby and Vanished novel · Chapter 14 of 32
Chapter 14: The Last Card
The door opened and the prospect stood in it.
He had no cut on, only a plain brown jacket, and he held his cap in both hands.
Under one arm was a flat box tied with twine.
Greet moved before I could speak.
She stepped between him and the bed with the steel water pitcher raised to her shoulder.
"Take one more step," she said, "and your mother gets a phone call."
"Ma'am, I'm not here to take anyone."
"That's what the last one said."
"Greet," I said.
She did not lower the pitcher.
I held my son tighter and sat up straight against the pillows, which hurt.
"You told him where I was," I said to the prospect. "In November. I heard you through the vent."
"Yes, ma'am."
"You said, we bring both."
"I did." He swallowed. "I'd been told to say it."
"By Pieter."
"By Pieter." He took a breath. "Mr. Verwey died on the ninth of May."
The room went silent except for the machine in the next bay, beeping at someone else's heart.
"No," I said.
"Lung failure. It was in his sleep, with Sanne next to him, and the oxygen bottle on the floor. The funeral was the fourteenth." He looked at me steadily. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I know that's a hard way to hear it."
I looked at Greet.
She had lowered the pitcher an inch.
"You expect me to believe that?" I said.
"No, ma'am. That's why I brought proof." He reached into his jacket, slowly, and took out a folded paper and held it at arm's length.
Greet took it, and read it, and held it out to me.
It was the printed program from a funeral home in Holland.
PIETER JAN VERWEY, it said, and two dates, and a photo of him with his warm grandfather smile, his hand resting on the tank of a bike.
He was dead.
I stared at the smile until it stopped looking like anything.
I had expected to feel glad.
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