The Man Who Can't Let Go novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Monday at Nine

Greta came up the stairs with her coat over her arm and her pearls still on.

She stopped on the landing and took in the whole scene at once.

Tobias stood in the study doorway holding a bundle of letters.

Virginia was beside him with the open notebook.

Abel was at the head of the stairs with his phone raised, and Sisi was pressed against the banister in her bathrobe.

"Well," Greta said. "This is a family meeting."

"Mother," Tobias said. "Say that it isn't yours."

"Which?"

"All of it."

Greta looked at the drawer and then at the green card on the envelope, and she didn't blink.

"It's mine," she said. "I signed for the papers. I kept the post. I wrote the letter."

The landing was silent.

"You admit it," Virginia said.

"I'd be a fool not to. You're holding it." Greta set her coat down on the banister and smoothed her sleeve. "I did it for him."

"For me," Tobias said.

"You were dying in that office. You couldn't eat. You'd lost twenty pounds in a month." Her voice was gentle and steady.

"She'd left you in the night, with nothing but a scrap of paper. I decided she hadn't earned you."

"She left a note that said come find me."

"She left a note on a grocery pad," Greta said. "What kind of woman leaves a man a grocery list?"

"The kind who was twenty-four and scared," Virginia said, "and who loved him."

Greta turned her head slowly.

"You've been telling yourself that for three years in Maine," she said. "I'm sure it's a comfort."

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