The Letter
PART 6: "The Letter"
James Whitfield flew home from New York that evening.
He arrived at the Marblehead estate at 9 PM, still wearing his work suit, carrying the leather briefcase that he took to every meeting and that contained, on this particular evening, his laptop, two contracts, and the complete text history between himself and his mother going back fourteen months.
He didn't go to Eleanor's cottage. He went to the main house. Sat down at the kitchen table across from Detective Méndez.
"I want to see the video."
Méndez showed him.
James watched the seventeen seconds three times. On the third viewing, his hand went flat against the table. Not a slap. A press. The motion of a man pushing down on something to keep it from rising.
"That's my mother."
"Yes."
"In my son's room."
"Yes."
"Putting something under his mattress."
"A strip of thumbtacks. Twenty-six of them. Your son has been sleeping on them."
James closed his eyes.
When he opened them, they were wet. Not crying — containing. The controlled moisture of a man who has been trained by decades of boardrooms and negotiations to never show weakness and who is now sitting in his kitchen watching his mother hurt his child and who is discovering that the training doesn't hold.
"She told me Catherine was unstable," James said. "She told me Catherine was having postpartum episodes. She arranged the medication. She told me the previous maid was stealing."
"And the letter?"
James looked at Méndez.
"What letter?"
"Catherine says your mother found a letter from a man named David Chen. That Eleanor used the letter to conclude that Oliver isn't your biological son."
James was quiet for a long time.
"There was no letter from David Chen."
Méndez straightened.
"David Chen was Catherine's college friend. He lives in Seattle. They haven't spoken in four years. There was no letter."
"Then where did Eleanor —"
"My mother wrote it."
---
James pulled up his phone. Opened the text history with his mother.
Fourteen months of messages. The careful, persistent, methodical communication of a woman who was building a case against her daughter-in-law one text at a time.
"I found something in your study that concerns me."
"Catherine has been distant. I'm worried about her mental state."
"The baby doesn't look like you, James. Have you noticed?"
"I think we need to consider the possibility that Oliver isn't yours."
"Dr. Keane agrees that Catherine is showing signs of postpartum psychosis."
Message after message. Week after week. Eleanor planting seeds of doubt in her son's mind.
"She told me she found a letter," James said. "She showed me a printed letter, supposedly from David Chen, that was romantic in nature. I confronted Catherine. Catherine denied it. My mother said Catherine was lying."
"Did you verify the letter?"
"No."
"Did you contact David Chen?"
"No."
"Did you question your mother's story?"
James put the phone down.
"No. Because she's my mother. And I trusted her."
---
Méndez traced the letter that evening.
It was printed on standard paper from an HP printer. The model matched the printer in Eleanor's cottage. The email address in the header — supposedly David Chen's — was a Gmail account created six months ago with no other activity.
Eleanor created a fake email. Wrote a fake letter. Printed it on her own printer. And showed it to James as evidence that his wife was unfaithful and his son wasn't his.
"Why?" Méndez asked James.
James sat in the kitchen with his hands around a coffee mug that had gone cold, staring at the table with the expression of a man who is seeing his family clearly for the first time and who doesn't recognize what he sees.
"Because my mother has controlled every part of my life since I was born. Who I dated. Where I went to school. What I studied. When Catherine got pregnant, my mother wasn't happy. She said it was 'too soon.' She said Catherine wasn't ready."
"She didn't want the baby?"
"She didn't want anything she couldn't control. And a baby — a grandchild — is something that belongs to Catherine, not to her. Eleanor can't stand that."
"So she tried to destroy the relationship between you and Catherine. And when that didn't work fast enough, she started hurting the baby."
James put his head in his hands.
---
May you like
Keep reading Part 7 — because Eleanor's attorney argues that she was acting out of genuine concern for the baby. That the letter was real. That the tacks were planted by someone else. And the person she accuses of planting them is Sofia.
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