Page 66 of When I'm Gone
But, Luke, even though you are not your dad, I do worry about the anger you keep bottled inside, the punching bag in the basement, how you’ll handle your grief and the demands of being a single dad ...
There was a whole other page of writing, but Luke put the letter down. He wouldn’t read any further. Was she really so cruel that she could possibly want to force him to relive the worst moment of his life? He’d changed his life because of what happened between them that day. He’d learned how to lock away the beast, and until recently, it had stayed subdued.
Wasn’t a lifetime of happiness enough for Natalie, or was she still trying to pay him back? Is that what all this was—one last shot at revenge? Luke crumpled the letter in one hand, compressing it into a ball inside his fist. He took aim and tossed it into the open garbage can, knocking the lid down with an open palm. No more letters. No more.
CHAPTER 27
Luke returned to the half-empty closet. He’d thought it would be a more rewarding sight, but now it only made him remember his regrets. In his mind he lined them up, one behind the other, filling the empty hangers on the rod.
No, he couldn’t keep going this way. Counting regrets would only lead to new ones. He had to fill the newly emptied space. Lacing his finger through several filled hangers, Luke whisked three work shirts, two pairs of khakis, and one somewhat dusty sweater across the space and put them on the empty rod with a clank.There, that looks better,he thought, feeling a little satisfied.
In the corner of the closet, part of the baseboard looked askew. Maybe he’d kicked it during his packing frenzy. Great, another thing to put on his to-do list. With Natalie’s clothes gone, it was easy to examine the damage.
Luke crawled toward the crooked piece of wood. Up close it was easier to see several black scuff marks and slight dents in the drywall above. Holding the baseboard with his fingertips, Luke tried to adjust its position enough to cover the marred wall. It fell off into his hands. He held it, frozen. A long, rectangular opening stared back at him.
What the?Luke leaned the piece of baseboard against the wall and ran his hand along the jagged edge of the drywall. Immediately his fingers brushed a solid object. Unable to actually see the item, he hoped it was something inorganic he was touching and not the remnants of a mouse nest or something else equally disgusting. Whatever it was, it was defiantly stuck. He pulled down one of his shirts, hanger and all. Ripping open the top button of the faded blue-and-white work shirt, he forced the plastic hanger out through the neckhole. Perfect.
He got down a little lower, now on his stomach, inserting the flat side of the hanger into the opening and swiping it across the edge of the carpet, not letting up when he met resistance. Then, with a swish and thunk, a maroon rectangle about the size of a child’s picture book flew out from the hole in the wall.
Luke picked up the fabric-covered book.What in the world?Plastic pages stuck out around the edges, and the binding was cracked on the top and bottom. Flipping the book over to what he thought was the front, Luke stared at the empty cover, and, fingers trembling, he opened the book.
There was no title page, no description of what he was looking at, just a newspaper clipping from the Mallory Witling investigation. Mallory Witling. The name was familiar. Luke searched his memory, trying to figure out where he’d heard that name before. Oh yes, it was when Natalie took a continuing ed class. Maybe a psych class? That’s right—she wrote a paper about this girl. Maybe the scrapbook was part of Natalie’s project.
The date on the article was from nearly twenty years ago, just after senior year of high school. It was cut out of an actual newspaper, not printed off a computer. Strange. Mallory Witling disappeared at three years old without a trace from her home in Lansing. Her parents, Mark and Eva Witling, were begging for any news regarding her disappearance and offering a reward.
The clipping didn’t mean much to him. All Luke knew about the story he learned from an episode ofDatelineNatalie had forced him to watch as part of her research. Beyond that, Luke could barely remember much about the Witling case, just a few hazy details.
Luke turned the page; another newspaper article. This one was from a week later when the case was upgraded to “missing, presumed dead.” The police found blood all over Mallory’s pillow and bedding, and cadaver dogs detected her scent in Eva Witling’s car. The next page had an article about Eva Witling’s lie detector test. She’d failed it miserably and soon after hired a lawyer. Another article when she was arrested. Page after page of articles followed: when she posted bail, when the husband came to police with evidence pointing to his wife, when they divorced, when the police exhumed the body of the oldest Witling child—Diane, when they performed an autopsy, when the results reported Diane had died of ethylene glycol poisoning. After the first three or four pages, Luke flipped through the rest of the pasted-on clippings just reading the headlines, the pages making a thump with each new turn.
Finally, he reached the last article. The headline read: “LIFE.” Luke, now fully invested in the story of poor little Mallory Witling, read every detail eagerly.
After being confronted with Diane’s autopsy, Eva Witling was offered a plea deal. She took the deal and pleaded guilty to both Mallory’s and Diane’s murders. Her attorneys pushed for placement in a mental health facility rather than prison, claiming Eva suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy. They claimed that Eva didn’t mean to kill the girls, just make them sick enough to need to go to the hospital. It was the attention she craved, not the illness. Eva testified that both deaths were accidental overdoses rather than premeditated murder.
In the end the judge showed no mercy, stating that repeatedly poisoning her daughters with antifreeze was not an accident. Eva ended up in the state penitentiary serving twenty-to-life, the death penalty off the table only because of her plea deal.
It was a heavy read. Luke flipped through the pages one more time, hoping there would be some kind of hint as to why this one event stuck with his wife and why she hid the scrapbook. Lansing. Not close to Pentwater, but not exactly far away either. Maybe she knew the family. Or maybe she knew the kids that died. He slapped the book closed.
A folded piece of paper fluttered out of one of the pages. It must’ve been hidden behind an article, inside one of the plastic pockets. The paper was folded in thirds, stiff and felt textured between his fingers. Far more expensive than the notebook paper Natalie used for her letters to him. Unsure what to expect, he unfolded the paper, a typed letter, one page long.
Dear Natalie,
It is with heavy heart that I contact you. I’m breaking with agency protocol, but seeing that we’ve never had anything like this happen before, maybe there isn’t protocol for this kind of thing. After your years of service for our organization and the support you’ve given other birth parents during your time with us, I feel like I have no other choice. I have to tell you the truth about what happened to your daughter.
Luke reread the line again. “Your daughter.” The date on the letter was from a month before Will’s birth, the same as the one he’d memorized from the Maranatha envelope, so the daughter wasn’t May. Then he thought of Andy’s daughter, who was supposedly his with Nancy. Or was that child really Natalie’s? Luke kept reading.
When you gave up your daughter eight years ago, you trusted Pastor Neal, Maria, and me to find a safe and loving home for your baby girl. We thought we had. I swear we did everything by the book, followed every step in the process. This family, they’d lost a child to a hereditary illness and, afraid they’d pass that disease on to another biological child, decided to adopt. They passed all the tests and visits and had been on our list for over eighteen months. I felt so right about that family, but I’ve never been so wrong. I feel the weight of that decision every day of my life.
You may have heard of little Mallory Witling, missing, presumed dead. I’m sorry to tell you, Natalie, Mallory was your daughter. I’ve kept a detailed scrapbook of all the significant events in her investigation and court case if you want to know more. The one comfort I can send you is that Eva Witling is in prison. I couldn’t make myself write this letter until I knew that I could give you that small bit of consolation.
I can never speak with you about the contents of this letter. I’m already risking my job by reaching out, and after losing Mallory the way we did, I now see even clearer how important my job is here. I don’t want this to ever happen again. I won’t let it.
I hope to see you and Andy at the convention again this summer, but I’d appreciate it if you kept this information private. I wouldn’t want Andy to worry about his own daughter’s placement. After this unfortunate loss, we’ve made an effort to check in with all our adoptive parents and changed some of our procedures when it comes to child placement.
Wishing you the best,
Christina Stephani
Doing some mental math, Luke counted back years and months. Mallory went missing when she was three years old. The letter was dated a month before Will’s birth. That meant Natalie was only fourteen when her daughter was born. Her first child was born sometime after her freshman year of high school.
