Then we spotted the old television and VCR stacked right next to the crib.
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Taped to the front of the top cassette was a handwritten label: For Chloe. With everyone present.
Right beneath it sat a second tape, marked simply: Greg’s promises.
All the color just vanished from Greg’s face. His phone slipped right out of his fingers and shattered on the concrete.
Without missing a beat, Ms. Richards grabbed an extension cord and hooked up the old television. A second later, dad’s face flickered onto the screen, sitting right at his workbench with the unfinished pieces of the crib behind him.
“Greg,” Dad said, “I told you three times to tell Chloe the truth. You gave me your word.”
Greg tried to bolt down the driveway, but I stepped right into his path, cutting him off. “No,” I said. “You wanted everyone here to see this. You’re staying.”
What played out over the next few minutes made my stomach violently heave. Greg hadn’t been protecting me from the world all these years. He had been locking me away from it.
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He told me Aunt Sandy wanted peace and quiet on her birthday. He told Aunt Sandy I’d run away. He told Sadie I didn’t want to go to her wedding. He swore up and down we couldn’t do Thanksgiving because Uncle Nolan was bedridden. Every single time I sat at home alone, eating dinner in my sweatpants and trying to be polite by giving everyone space, Greg was spinning another lie just to keep us apart.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it. While he was quietly cooking the books for dad’s accounts, he’d been shaking down Aunt Sandy, Nolan, and Sadie for cash, bleeding them dry with fake medical bills and made-up emergencies like a leaking roof.
