The Man Who Watched Me Grow Up
Chapter 13 - The Man Who Watched Me Grow Up
The payments Andrew uncovered led to a private investigator named Martin Keene.
He had worked on and off for Charles for nearly fifteen years.
When Rebecca's investigator found him, Martin initially denied knowing anything about me.
Then he received formal requests for records.
His story began changing.
Eventually, through his attorney, he agreed to give an interview to investigators.
He admitted that he'd been assigned to monitor Thomas Reed and the child living with him.
He said Charles had wanted updates about the boy's location, schooling, and health.
He denied knowing the full circumstances of my disappearance.
I sat beside Rebecca while she summarized the information.
"Charles paid someone to watch me?"
"That's what the records suggest."
"Why didn't he take me?"
Rebecca looked at me.
"We can't know his reasoning without more evidence."
I thought about my life.
The old apartment in Rockford.
The years in Milwaukee.
The move to Chicago.
Dad's reluctance to let me appear in school photographs.
His nervousness whenever unfamiliar cars parked outside our home.
Suddenly, memories I'd never understood began making sense.
Dad hadn't simply been private.
He'd been afraid.
I found an old notebook among his belongings.
One page contained a series of dates and vehicle descriptions.
Another had a single sentence.
Blue sedan outside school again.
My hands shook.
Dad had been keeping track.
He hadn't imagined the danger.
He'd lived with it.
I took the notebook to Rebecca.
Then I visited his grave again.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
I'd spent weeks angry that Dad hadn't told me the truth.
Now I understood the weight he'd carried.
A frightened seven-year-old.
A powerful family.
A secret that might put both of us in danger.
He had tried to give me an ordinary life.
And in many ways, he succeeded.
I thought about the birthdays.
The baseball games.
The cheap fishing trips.
The nights he stayed awake helping me study.
A quiet man with grease beneath his fingernails had given me the one thing money couldn't guarantee.
A childhood where I felt loved.
When I returned home, Mia was waiting.
She had made Dad's favorite beef stew.
We ate together at the little kitchen table.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then Mia said, "I miss him."
I nodded.
"Me too."
She looked at me.
"Do you think he'd be proud of us?"
I smiled sadly.
"He'd probably tell you to stop leaving textbooks on the floor."
She laughed.
"And tell you to change the oil in your car."
I laughed too.
For the first time, I could remember Thomas without feeling that finding Catherine had somehow betrayed him.
He was my father.
Gabriel was my father too.
One had given me life.
The other had helped me keep it.
May you like
Both mattered.
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