Chapter 10 - The Mother I Barely Remembered
My mother, Catherine, died in a boating accident when I was twelve.
No body was recovered.
I suddenly hated those words.
No body.
Another death I had accepted because adults told me to.
Dad raised me alone afterward.
At least until his supposed death five years later.
Now his recording suggested Catherine had been part of everything.
“I loved your mother,” Dad said on the video. “But Catherine believed the technology belonged to her family.”
Her family?
Mom had supposedly been a music teacher.
Dad continued:
“She was Jonathan Mercer’s half sister.”
I stared.
That made Alan Mercer my cousin.
Emily’s relative.
Suddenly his strange interest in our family made more sense.
Catherine and Jonathan had inherited early research from their father.
Dad improved it dramatically.
Ownership became disputed.
Then millions entered the picture.
Families turned patents into weapons.
Dad claimed Catherine helped Jonathan falsify documents to establish ownership.
When Dad discovered it, she threatened to take me away.
Then she disappeared.
The boating accident was staged.
“Where is she?” I whispered at the screen.
Dad answered as if he had heard me.
“I don’t know.”
His recording was three days old.
He had contacted Alan Mercer because Alan claimed Catherine was dead and wanted to end the feud.
Dad didn’t believe him.
Neither should we.
Then the video shifted.
Dad held up a document.
“The original patent notebooks are still in Sarah’s possession.”
Mine?
I had never seen them.
“Catherine hid them somewhere Sarah would never throw away.”
The video ended.
I returned home with police after nearly a week away.
Everything looked different.
The bathroom where Emily had collapsed.
The hallway where Michael’s footsteps once controlled the mood of the entire house.
The bedroom where I had hidden emergency cash between towels.
Police searched only where authorized.
Nothing.
Then I remembered Mom.
Not her jewelry.
Not photographs.
Music.
She had given me an old upright piano before she disappeared.
I kept it through every move because it was one of the few things I had left from her.
A technician opened the back panel.
Inside were four notebooks sealed in plastic.
Research notes.
Signatures.
Dates.
And a letter.
Sarah,
If Henry tells you I stole his work, ask him why my father’s experiments appear in his notebooks before he ever met me.
Mom.
My dead mother had apparently anticipated Dad’s accusation.
The notebooks showed contributions from both families.
No simple thief.
No simple victim.
But one page contained something else.
A list of adverse testing incidents involving an early version of the technology.
Several patients had become seriously ill.
The results were buried.
Signed authorization:
Henry Lawson.
My father.
I felt sick.
Dad had hidden safety problems too.
Then Emily noticed handwriting in the margin.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“That looks like Grandpa’s writing.”
It was.
One sentence:
STOP TRIALS IMMEDIATELY.
Someone had crossed it out.
Another signature approved continuation.
Catherine Lawson.
My mother.
Neither parent was innocent.
One tried stopping the tests.
The other continued them.
But which document came first?
Before we could determine that, the front doorbell rang.
Police answered.
An elderly woman stood outside.
Silver hair.
Thin frame.
Tears already streaming down her face.
She looked at me.
I had not seen her since I was twelve.
But I recognized her immediately.
“Sarah.”
My legs stopped working.
“Mom?”
Emily appeared behind me.
The woman stared at her granddaughter.
Then whispered:
“Oh my God.”
I wanted answers.
Instead, Catherine looked past me at the opened piano.
Her expression changed.
“You found the notebooks.”
“Yes.”
“Then we don’t have much time.”
“For what?”
She stepped inside.
“Your father is coming.”
I stared at her.
“I want him to.”
“No.”
She grabbed my wrist.
“Sarah, Henry isn’t trying to protect Emily.”
“Then what does he want?”
My mother looked toward my daughter.
“The same thing Michael wanted.”
“The patents?”
May you like
She shook her head.
“Emily.”
