PART 2 — THE SECRET IN THE BLUE BLANKET
For several seconds, I couldn’t move.
Greg was still kneeling beneath the porch light, digging into the flower bed with one hand while holding that blue bundle against his chest with the other.
My first thought was so terrible that I immediately tried to push it away.
No.
Absolutely not.
But then the bundle moved.
Just slightly.
My hand flew to my mouth.
Something was alive inside that blanket.
I unlocked the back door.
“Greg?”
The shovel stopped.
His entire body went rigid.
He didn’t turn around.
“Greg, what are you doing?”
Slowly, my husband looked over his shoulder.
I had known that face for thirty-four years.
I had seen Greg angry.
Terrified.
Grieving.
Overjoyed.
But I had never seen him look the way he did at that moment.
He looked caught.
“Laura,” he whispered.
“What are you holding?”
He immediately pulled the bundle closer to his chest.
That frightened me more than anything.
I stepped onto the porch.
“Show me.”
“Go back inside.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Please.”
His voice cracked.
“Just go back upstairs.”
I almost laughed because the request was so ridiculous.
My husband had been secretly leaving our bed for weeks.
He had lied about sleeping in the guest room.
He had taken our son’s baby blanket.
He had called something “sweetheart.”
He had called himself Daddy.
And now he was digging a hole in our backyard at two in the morning.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Open the blanket.”
Greg lowered his eyes.
“Laura—”
“Open it.”
The bundle moved again.
Then I heard it.
A tiny whimper.
Not a baby’s cry.
Something softer.
Weaker.
Greg closed his eyes.
And suddenly I understood.
I walked down the porch steps.
He didn’t stop me this time.
When I reached him, I slowly pulled back one corner of the blue blanket.
Two enormous brown eyes looked up at me.
I froze.
It was a puppy.
A tiny golden-colored puppy.
She couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old.
One of her front legs was wrapped in a small white bandage.
She was trembling against Greg’s chest.
For a moment, relief hit me so hard my knees nearly buckled.
Then confusion replaced it.
“A dog?”
Greg said nothing.
“You’ve been sneaking downstairs every night because of a puppy?”
He swallowed.
“Keep your voice down.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
His eyes immediately shifted toward the house next door.
That was when I noticed something else.
Our back gate was open.
Greg never left that gate open.
Never.
“What is going on?”
He looked toward the fence again.
“She isn’t mine.”
“Then whose is she?”
Greg hesitated.
“Technically?”
My stomach tightened.
“Technically?”
He looked down at the puppy.
“She belongs to someone who shouldn’t have her.”
Before I could ask another question, headlights swept across the fence.
Greg’s face changed instantly.
He stood.
“Inside.”
“What?”
“Laura, get inside.”
A vehicle had stopped somewhere near the front of our house.
A car door slammed.
Then another.
Greg shoved the little shovel behind the hydrangeas.
He handed me the puppy.
“Take her.”
I automatically wrapped my arms around her.
She was unbelievably light.
“Greg—”
“Guest room.”
“What?”
“Put her in the guest room and close the curtains.”
There was urgency in his voice that made me obey before my brain caught up.
I hurried inside.
The puppy pressed her face against my chest.
When I entered the guest room, everything suddenly made sense.
There was a small dog bed beside the dresser.
A water bowl.
Puppy food.
Medicine.
Old towels.
And beside the bed sat the rocking chair I’d seen moving.
Greg hadn’t been sleeping down here because of his back.
He had been taking care of her.
But why secretly?
I placed the puppy carefully on the bed.
That’s when I noticed the envelope.
It was lying beneath the lamp.
My name was written across the front.
LAURA.
I reached for it.
Before I could open it, someone pounded on our front door.
Three hard knocks.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
The puppy immediately began shaking.
I heard Greg moving through the hallway.
Then a man’s voice came through the door.
“Greg!”
I didn’t recognize it.
“Open the door!”
Greg answered without opening it.
“It’s two in the morning.”
“I know you’ve got her.”
My blood went cold.
The puppy crawled beneath the blue blanket.
The man pounded again.
“You can’t hide her forever.”
I quietly stepped into the hallway.
Greg saw me.
For the briefest second, fear crossed his face.
Not fear for himself.
Fear for me.
He pointed silently toward the guest room.
Go back.
I didn’t.
“Who is that?” I whispered.
Greg shook his head.
The man outside heard me.
There was silence.
Then he said something that made my stomach twist.
“So Laura doesn’t know?”
Greg’s jaw tightened.
“Leave my wife out of this.”
The man laughed.
“You already brought her into it.”
I walked toward the front door.
Greg blocked me.
“Don’t.”
“Who is he?”
“I’ll explain.”
“When?”
“After he leaves.”
The stranger knocked again.
This time softer.
Almost casually.
“Tell Laura to ask you where you were three weeks ago on Tuesday night.”
I looked at Greg.
His face went pale.
“What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing.”
The stranger laughed again.
“Ask him.”
Greg suddenly unlocked the door and stepped outside, pulling it shut behind him.
I rushed toward the window.
Two men were standing on our porch.
One was tall and broad, probably in his forties.
The other remained near a dark pickup parked at the curb.
I couldn’t hear everything.
But I heard enough.
“…police…”
“…not your decision…”
“…she saw you…”
Then Greg said something.
The tall man stepped closer.
And punched my husband in the face.
I screamed.
Greg stumbled backward.
I threw open the door.
“Get away from him!”
The man turned toward me.
There was something cold in his expression.
“You must be Laura.”
“Get off my property.”
He wiped his knuckles against his jacket.
“Ask your husband what he stole.”
Greg grabbed my arm.
“Inside.”
The man smiled.
“Or better yet, ask him who called him Daddy.”
My heart stopped.
Greg’s grip tightened.
The stranger walked toward the truck.
Before climbing inside, he looked back at us.
“You’ve got until tomorrow night.”
Then they drove away.
I stood beneath the porch light staring at my husband.
Blood was running from his lip.
“Start talking.”
Greg wiped his mouth.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
He didn’t answer.
I pointed toward the guest room.
“You lied to me for weeks.”
“I know.”
“You stole Michael’s blanket.”
“I borrowed it.”
“You’ve been sneaking around our house in the middle of the night.”
“I know.”
“And some stranger just punched you on our porch because you apparently stole something.”
Greg looked exhausted.
“Laura—”
“No.”
My voice shook.
“Who called you Daddy?”
His expression changed.
And suddenly I knew the puppy wasn’t the whole secret.
“Greg.”
He looked toward the staircase.
Then back at me.
“I need to show you something.”
He walked into the guest room.
The puppy lifted her head when she saw him.
Greg sat beside her and gently stroked her ear.
Then he reached beneath the mattress.
He pulled out a photograph.
It was old.
Maybe thirty years old.
He handed it to me.
I looked down.
And my entire body went cold.
Greg was in the photograph.
He looked about twenty-five.
Standing beside him was a young woman I had never seen before.
She was holding a newborn baby.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written three words.
GREG AND HIS DAUGHTER.
I stared at those words until they blurred.
“No.”
Greg didn’t speak.
“No.”
“Laura—”
“We had been married five years when you were twenty-five.”
“I know.”
I dropped the photograph onto the bed.
“You have another daughter?”
Greg covered his face with both hands.
I felt like the room was spinning.
“Thirty-one years.”
My voice came out barely above a whisper.
“Thirty-one years, Greg.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Then what am I supposed to think?”
He looked at me.
“There was never another woman.”
I pointed at the photograph.
“She’s standing right there!”
“Her name was Rebecca.”
Was.
That single word caught me.
“Was?”
Greg’s eyes filled with tears.
“Rebecca died three weeks ago.”
The anger inside me suddenly collided with something else.
Confusion.
“Who was she?”
Greg stared at the floor.
“My sister.”
I blinked.
“Your what?”
“My half-sister.”
Greg had always told me he was an only child.
Before I could speak, he continued.
“My father had another family before he met my mother. Rebecca contacted me when I was twenty-four. My parents begged me never to tell anyone.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“Then why does this say ‘Greg and his daughter’?”
“Because Rebecca wrote it.”
“Why?”
Greg didn’t answer.
The puppy suddenly whimpered.
Greg stroked her gently.
Then he said, “Rebecca had a daughter named Claire.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Where is Claire?”
“She’s thirty now.”
The same age as Michael.
Greg nodded.
“And three weeks ago, she called me.”
“Why?”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“Because Rebecca was dying.”
I waited.
Greg’s voice dropped.
“She wanted me to finally tell Claire the truth.”
“What truth?”
Before he could answer, something tapped against the guest-room window.
Greg immediately stood.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
We both turned.
There was nobody outside.
Then we noticed what had struck the glass.
A small white envelope lay on the ground beneath the window.
Greg rushed outside and picked it up.
There was no stamp.
No address.
Someone had walked into our backyard and placed it there.
He opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Greg read it.
His face went completely white.
“What does it say?”
He didn’t answer.
I ripped the paper from his hand.
There were only two sentences.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE PAST BURIED.
NOW LAURA GETS TO KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO HER SON.
I stopped breathing.
“My son?”
Greg looked at me.
Not our son.
My son.
“Greg…”
He backed away.
And that was when I realized the hole in the flower bed hadn’t been meant for the puppy at all.
Something was already buried there.
Something my husband had hidden for thirty years.
And whatever it was, it had something to do with Michael……………………
