Found Money - James Grippando [121]
“What does this prove, though? It’s just a letter from my mother saying that Marilyn was never actually raped by Frank Duffy.”
Gram took another look at the letter. “It’s more than that. It says Marilyn and your mother attended their twenty-fifth high school reunion together. They had a few drinks, got to talking about old boyfriends. And then Marilyn admitted to your mother that Frank Duffy didn’t rape her.”
“What’s the difference?”
“To me, it makes the letter more believable. It’s not a secret your mother kept bottled up for twenty-five years and then, for no apparent reason, she decided to write a letter to Frank Duffy. She apparently wrote this letter not too long after Marilyn told her the truth.”
“Do you believe she wrote the letter?”
“What reason would I have to doubt that?”
Amy took the letter back. “I don’t think the handwriting looks all that much like Mom’s. Look at it. It’s shaky.”
Gram took another look. “There could be any number of reasons for that. Maybe she wrote it the night she came back from the reunion, when it was fresh in her mind. She could have been dead tired or even drunk.”
“Or scared,” said Amy.
“Scared of what?”
“This was a very courageous thing to do. Marilyn Gaslow was married to Joe Kozelka at the time. That’s a pretty intimidating duo. Not everyone would do the right thing under those circumstances.”
“Meaning what, Amy?”
“Meaning that she might have feared some retaliation. She could have been afraid…afraid for her life.”
Gram groaned. “Now you’re going off the deep end again.”
Amy was even more serious. “I don’t think so. Look at the evidence. I never believed Mom really killed herself. Not the way she talked to me that night, the way the door was tied shut even though she knew I could crawl out through the attic. I never knew why anyone would want to kill her. But this letter—that’s a reason, isn’t it?”
“Nobody killed your mother, Amy. Your mother killed herself.”
“I don’t believe it. She wasn’t the type to just check out on an eight-year-old daughter.”
“Amy, we’ve been over this so many times. Your mother was terminally ill with a very aggressive cancer. By the time she took her life, she had only weeks to live.”
“According to one doctor. Another gave her as long as three months.”
“Who told you that?”
“Marilyn. Years ago.”
“That’s not her place,” snapped Gram.
“Wrong. It’s not your place to keep things like that from me. The longer Mom had to live, the less likely it was she killed herself.”
“You’re grasping at straws.”
Her eyes blazed with anger. “Just because you’re convinced it was suicide doesn’t give you the right to hide the true facts from me.”
“I just didn’t want you to see your mother as a coward who left her little girl sooner than she had to. How can you fault me for that?”
“Because she’s my mother, that’s why. I have a right to know what happened.”
“And I had a responsibility. I didn’t want you to end up in counseling all your life. I was just looking out for you.”
“Well, damn it, just stop already. I’m twenty-eight years old. Stop treating me as if I were Taylor’s age!”
Tears welled in Gram’s eyes. “I’m sorry. It was a decision I made for your own good.”
“Let me make those decisions,” she shouted, rising from the bed.
“At least let me explain.”
Amy felt the urge to bolt, but the weary look in Gram’s eyes wouldn’t allow it. She sat back down on the edge of the bed.
“When your father was killed in Vietnam…” Her grandmother paused, struggling. “I had to know what happened to my son.”
Her voice was cracking. Amy touched her hand to console. Gram continued. “It wasn’t enough just to hear he’d been killed in action. I needed specifics. I asked everyone who knew him, other boys in his platoon. Most of them gave me vague answers. I wouldn’t stop until I found someone who would be completely honest with me. Finally, I found someone. To this day, I wish I never had. I thought it would give me closure to know exactly how it had happened.” She dabbed a tear, then looked her