Chapter 4
Five minutes later, both children were asleep.
I stood near the window while Cassandra checked the lock, gathered toys off the floor, and turned off the main light.
Only the lamp near the sofa remained.
Snow pressed softly against the glass.
“My mother should be here soon,” I said.
Cassandra folded her arms.
“You really asked her to come?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“Only that she was leaving immediately.”
“That sounds like Eleanor.”
“You remember her well?”
“I remember liking her.”
The sadness in Cassandra’s voice made me turn.
“She liked you too.”
“I thought she did.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Cassandra sat on the edge of the second bed.
“Damon, before she arrives, I need you to understand something.”
I waited.
“I don’t want tonight to become about deciding who the villain is.”
I frowned.
“She kept my children from me.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“Miles said—”
“Miles said your mother asked him not to tell you immediately.”
“He then hid the truth for three years.”
“Yes. And he is responsible for that.”
There was steel in her voice.
“But your mother’s note was written before I contacted her. That means there is more happening here than we understand.”
I looked toward the sleeping twins.
“What could possibly justify this?”
“Maybe nothing.”
She paused.
“But I spent three years believing you had rejected your own children.”
The words hurt even though I already knew them.
“I was wrong.”
She looked up at me.
“I don’t want you to make the same mistake in the other direction.”
That was Cassandra.
She had always been able to find the place where anger stopped being useful.
I sat across from her.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
It was possibly the most honest sentence I had spoken all night.
“Do what?”
“All of it.”
I gestured toward the room.
“The twins. You. My mother. Miles. Tomorrow morning. What happens after tomorrow morning.”
Cassandra studied me.
“You’re trying to solve the next ten years before midnight.”
“I solve things.”
“I know.”
“It’s what I’m good at.”
“It’s what you hide inside.”
I looked at her.
She didn’t flinch.
“You don’t need a ten-year plan tonight,” she said. “You need to decide what kind of father you’re going to be tomorrow.”
My eyes shifted toward Luke and Violet.
“That sounds almost too small.”
“It isn’t.”
“What does tomorrow look like?”
“Breakfast.”
I waited.
“That’s it?”
“Breakfast. Then maybe they’ll want to swim in the hotel pool. Maybe Violet will refuse every food offered to her except blueberries. Maybe Luke will ask you the same question seventeen times.”
“That doesn’t sound difficult.”
Cassandra’s eyebrows rose.
“Come back to me after question thirteen.”
I smiled despite myself.
Then my phone rang.
Mom.
Cassandra’s expression changed.
“She’s here.”
I answered.
“I’m downstairs.”
My mother’s voice was calm.
Too calm.
“I’ll come get you.”
“No. I know the room number.”
I stood.
“How?”
A pause.
“Your driver told mine.”
Of course.
Some habits of wealth were ridiculous even during personal disasters.
There was a knock on the door less than three minutes later.
Cassandra stood beside me.
I opened it.
Eleanor Prescott looked exactly as she had every Christmas Eve of my adult life.
Camel coat.
Pearl earrings.
Silver hair perfectly arranged.
Leather gloves in one hand.
Except she wasn’t carrying a gift.
And her face looked older than it had that morning.
For the first time in my life, my mother looked uncertain about entering a room.
Her gaze found me.
Then Cassandra.
Then the two sleeping children behind us.
She stopped breathing.
I watched her composure fail.
Not dramatically.
Just one slight movement of her hand toward her mouth.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Violet shifted in her sleep.
My mother’s eyes filled.
“You’ve never seen them,” I said.
It was not a question.
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Not even photographs?”
“One.”
I stared at her.
“Who sent it?”
“Miles.”
Cassandra stiffened beside me.
My mother looked at her.
“May I come in?”
Cassandra answered before I could.
“Yes.”
Eleanor stepped inside.
She removed her coat slowly and placed it over the back of a chair.
No assistant.
No driver.
No polished authority.
Just my mother.
She looked toward the children again.
“Luke and Violet?”
“Yes,” Cassandra said.
My mother smiled faintly.
“Beautiful names.”
“Thank you.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then Eleanor turned to Cassandra.
“I owe you an apology.”
Cassandra’s face changed.
She had probably spent years imagining this woman as part of the wall that kept me away.
Now Eleanor stood five feet away, looking almost afraid.
“For what?” Cassandra asked.
“For something I did three years ago.”
I stepped forward.
“Start at the beginning.”
My mother looked at me.
“That is exactly what I intend to do.”
She sat in the chair near the window.
I remained standing.
Cassandra sat on the sofa.
No one offered anyone coffee.
No one pretended this was normal.
My mother folded her gloves in her lap.
“When Cassandra called the company, Miles came to me.”
“You knew the same day?”
“No. Two days later.”
“Why would he come to you instead of me?”
“Because you were in Frankfurt, and because he knew what had happened between you and Cassandra.”
“That still doesn’t explain it.”
“No.”
She looked toward me.
“He came because three months earlier, I had asked him to tell me if Cassandra ever contacted you.”
I stared at her.
Cassandra leaned forward.
“Why?”
Eleanor did not look at me.
She looked at Cassandra.
May you like
“Because I knew there was a possibility you might be pregnant.”
The room seemed to shrink.
