The Truth He Buried With Her Chapter 07

The Truth He Buried With Her Chapter 07

I held Leo and slept one more night in his old little bed.

The light in the next room stayed on late. I heard my father and mother talking in low voices, too quiet to

make out.

The next morning, as I was leaving, Mom stuffed two containers into my bag-one with meatloaf, one with

green beans.

She tugged my sleeve and said, “You really aren’t going back?”

I said no.

She said Griffin had come by the day before yesterday. He’d lost a lot of weight.

I laughed coldly.

Her hand on my sleeve loosened.

Reese must have told them what I said. The people who had lied to me had no right to ask me to make

peace.

The people in the housing block didn’t know where I’d gone.

They only knew Griffin had lost a lot of weight.

At the mess hall, he didn’t talk to anyone. He took his food back to his office.

Major Sinclair went to sit with him, but he kept the door shut.

Blair wasn’t doing well either.

One evening, she suddenly collapsed. Her bowl shattered, porridge splashing across the floor.

They rushed her to the base clinic. The diagnosis was malposition of the fetus and malnutrition. They

transferred her.

She spent three days at the military hospital. The head of obstetrics said her blood pressure was too low. If she didn’t stay, she might lose the baby.

Rita went to visit her.

She brought half a basket of eggs, sat by the hospital bed, and peeled one for Blair.

Blair leaned against the headboard, her face as white as the sheets.

Rita held out the egg and asked the question she’d been holding for two whole months.

“Tell me the truth. Is the baby Griffin Prescott’s?”

Blair didn’t take the egg.

She slid down, pulled the blanket up to her chin, covering half her face.

Rita sat beside her and waited. The only thing she heard from under the blanket was a muffled, low sobbing.

When Rita came back from the hospital, she ran into Eleanor Harrington in the washhouse.

The two stood by the faucet for a while.

Eleanor turned the faucet off.

When the water stopped, the silence in the washhouse was abrupt.

“Do you still think the baby is Griffin Prescott’s?”

Rita froze.

She stood there holding her basin. Water sloshed over the rim onto her shoes.

“Then whose is it? Tell me.”

Eleanor held her white basin, half full of laundry, sleeves hanging over the edge and dripping.

She looked at Rita, her expression calm, but her voice was a note lower than usual.

“It’s not my place to say some things. But think for yourself. If Griffin Prescott had really done wrong, why would everyone in the unit cover for him? Do you think it’s because I, Eleanor, have some great influence?”

“Or because your commander Griffin Prescott is so popular? Neither. It’s because a dead man’s wishes carry more weight than anything else.”

Rita stood in the middle of the washhouse. The basin in her hands went from hot to cold.

Mitchell’s personal effects arrived at Battalion HQ.

The package wasn’t large. It was sewn shut with twine.

Griffin opened it. Inside was a neatly folded uniform, a set of boot bands, some folded cash, and an unsent

letter.

He opened the letter.

It was addressed to Blair.

He took it to Colonel Harrington.

The two shut the office door and stayed inside all afternoon.

That evening, Eleanor Harrington went to the hospital to see Blair.

She didn’t bring anything except the letter.

Blair was propped up in bed. Only one bedside lamp was on, the room dim.

Eleanor sat down beside the bed and handed her the letter, saying Mitchell’s effects had arrived. This was for

her.

Blair opened the letter and read.

After only a few lines, she pressed the pages to her chest.

Eleanor offered a handkerchief. Blair didn’t take it. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but they

kept filling.

The letter was two pages long.

She read for a long time, turning the pages over and over.

Eleanor walked to the end of the corridor and called her husband.

On the phone, she didn’t waste words. “The baby is Mitchell Davenport’s. You make this right tomorrow. No

more dragging it out.”

The next morning, Colonel Harrington announced over the base PA that the whole unit was to assemble.

The announcement sounded three times, louder each time.

Major Sinclair went door to door, knocking on every quarters. When he reached Rita’s door, she was hanging

laundry. Her hand shook, and a shirt fell to the ground.

The meeting room filled up, with people standing along the back.

Rita sat in the third row, in the middle.

When Colonel Harrington walked onto the stage, he held a document pouch. He didn’t use the microphone.

He just started speaking.

“I called everyone here today to clear up one thing: the situation of Blair Davenport and the child she is

carrying.”