Chapter 7
I looked at Cassandra.
She understood at the same moment I did.
“This wasn’t one bad decision,” she whispered.
“No.”
My voice was cold now.
“It was maintained.”
My mother nodded.
“Yes.”
I took out my phone.
Cassandra stepped toward me.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling him.”
“Damon.”
“I’m not going to threaten him.”
“That isn’t what I’m worried about.”
“Then what?”
She lowered her voice because of the children.
“You’re about to demand an answer from a man who has spent three years making sure no one had the complete story.”
I stared at her.
“You think he’ll lie.”
“I think he’ll tell you whatever version keeps him in control of the conversation.”
My mother spoke quietly.
“She’s right.”
I looked at her.
“I need to know why.”
“You do.”
“So what do you suggest?”
Cassandra glanced at the folder in Eleanor’s hand.
“We stop asking why for five minutes and ask what can actually be proven.”
That was why I had loved her.
Not because she made frightening things gentle.
Because she knew when gentleness was not enough.
I looked at my mother.
“What’s in the folder?”
Eleanor handed it to me.
Copies of lab reports.
A letter from Dr. Halpern.
A handwritten note in my father’s writing.
I stopped.
I knew that handwriting too.
Strong block letters.
Always blue ink.
My chest tightened.
The note was addressed to my mother.
Ellie,
If this ever comes out, make sure Damon understands one thing before anything else: I chose him from the beginning.
Biology is a fact.
Fatherhood was my decision every day.
Do not let anyone turn that into a loss.
—Richard
I read it once.
Then again.
My vision blurred.
For all the secrets.
For all the decisions made without me.
That line reached somewhere deeper than anger.
Fatherhood was my decision every day.
I looked across the room at Luke.
He had kicked off his blanket.
One small foot stuck out beneath the sheet.
Without thinking, I crossed the room and tucked the blanket back around him.
His eyes opened halfway.
“Dad?”
The word was so quiet I almost thought I imagined it.
I stopped moving.
Cassandra did too.
Luke blinked at me.
He was barely awake.
Maybe he didn’t even understand what he had said.
I crouched beside the bed.
“Yeah?”
His eyes closed again.
“Light.”
“The bathroom light is still on.”
“Okay.”
He fell back asleep.
I stayed there.
My hand rested on the edge of the mattress.
Behind me, no one spoke.
My father’s words seemed to fill the room.
Fatherhood was my decision every day.
I had missed nearly a thousand days.
I couldn’t choose them retroactively.
But tomorrow existed.
And the day after that.
And every day those children would allow me into their lives.
I stood and looked at Cassandra.
“I’m not going to disappear.”
She held my gaze.
“I know that’s easy to say tonight.”
“Yes.”
“I’m saying it anyway.”
Her eyes softened.
“What does it mean?”
“It means no lawyers deciding access before we do. No board meetings more important than showing up when I say I will. No pretending three years can be repaired with money.”
Cassandra glanced down.
“That last one matters.”
“I know.”
“You can’t buy your way into their lives.”
“I don’t want to.”
She looked at me skeptically.
“I know myself well enough to know I might try.”
That surprised a laugh out of her.
A quiet one.
I continued.
“So tell me when I’m doing it.”
“I usually do.”
“I remember.”
The space between us changed.
Not healed.
Not restored.
But opened.
Just a little.
I looked toward the twins.
“What do they know about me?”
Cassandra sat down.
“Not much.”
“Did they ask?”
“Recently.”
My chest tightened.
“What did you say?”
“That their father lived far away.”
“Which technically wasn’t true.”
“No.”
“Why not tell them I didn’t know?”
“Because they’re two.”
Fair.
“What happens now?”
“We take it slowly.”
“How slowly?”
“Breakfast.”
I smiled.
“Right.”
“Then maybe lunch.”
“Ambitious.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
My mother watched us.
There was sadness in her expression.
And relief.
Then Cassandra turned toward her.
“I have a question.”
Eleanor straightened.
“The note.”
My mother’s face changed.
“What note?”
“The one you wrote in September. The one that ended up inside my returned letter.”
Eleanor frowned.
“I didn’t write you a note in September.”
Every muscle in my body went still.
Cassandra looked at me.
“You saw it.”
“Yes.”
She pulled the cream stationery from the envelope again and handed it to Eleanor.
My mother read the three lines.
Her face lost all color.
Cassandra,
Please give me until after Christmas.
There is something Damon does not know.
Eleanor.
My mother sat down slowly.
“That is my stationery.”
“And your handwriting,” I said.
She looked up.
“No.”
I frowned.
“It is.”
“No, Damon.”
Her voice sharpened.
“That is not my handwriting.”
I moved closer.
“I’ve seen your handwriting my entire life.”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you saying?”
She lifted the paper toward the light.
“My handwriting changed after surgery.”
“What surgery?”
“My wrist.”
I remembered.
She had fallen while skiing in March three years before Cassandra became pregnant.
“After the fracture, I couldn’t hold a pen correctly for months.”
She pointed to the date.
“September eighteenth.”
“Yes.”
“I was still signing almost everything with my left hand.”
Cassandra stared at the note.
“The writing is right-handed.”
“Yes.”
A chill moved through me.
Someone had copied my mother’s handwriting.
Not perfectly.
But well enough.
I turned the paper over.
Nothing.
Cassandra looked at Eleanor.
“Who had access to your stationery?”
“My assistant. Household staff. Damon.”
She hesitated.
“And Miles.”
Of course.
But something in her expression suggested that was not the end.
“What?” I asked.
My mother looked at the page again.
“This stationery was discontinued years ago.”
“So?”
“So I kept what remained in one place.”
“Where?”
“At the house.”
“Anyone could have taken it.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Not anyone.”
“Who?”
“The box was in Richard’s study.”
My father’s study.
A room almost no one entered after his death.
My mother had preserved it exactly as he left it.
May you like
Old law books.
Golf trophies.
