Chapter 6 - THE TRUTH ABOUT GABRIEL MERCER
I stopped breathing.
Mercer.
I called Roman.
He answered immediately.
“Tessa.”
“Who is Gabriel Mercer?”
Silence.
My hands began shaking.
“Roman.”
“My older brother.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
No explosion.
No dramatic revelation.
Just one sentence changing the shape of my family.
“Is Gabriel Eli’s father?”
Roman took several seconds to answer.
“Yes.”
The room tilted.
I sat.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since before Eli was born.”
“And you never told him.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother asked my family to stay away.”
“Your family?”
“My brother specifically. Me by extension.”
“What happened?”
Roman’s voice remained low.
“Gabriel and your mother met when he was twenty-three. He was trying to leave Chicago.”
“Leave what?”
Roman paused.
“The same world I eventually entered.”
I stared at the letter.
“Mom knew?”
“Enough.”
“She had a child with him.”
“Yes.”
“And then married Dad?”
“Daniel was already her friend.”
My chest tightened.
Dad had raised Eli knowing another man was his biological father.
Not just another man.
Roman Mercer’s brother.
“Where is Gabriel now?”
A longer silence.
“Dead.”
I closed my eyes.
“When?”
“Fifteen years ago.”
Eli would have been five.
“How?”
“An illness.”
Not violence.
Not revenge.
Just illness.
That somehow made the story sadder.
“Did Dad know?”
“Yes.”
“Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Did Gabriel ever meet Eli?”
“Once.”
I looked down at the hospital bracelets in the box.
“When?”
“Shortly after he was born.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“This is why Dad kept you away from Eli.”
“Partly.”
“What’s the other part?”
Roman exhaled.
“He did not want Eli growing up believing blood obligated him to anything.”
That sounded like Dad.
“He worried if Eli knew he was connected to my family, he would become curious.”
“And curiosity was dangerous?”
“Curiosity can become identity when you’re young.”
I hated how reasonable that sounded.
“Dad thought you’d recruit him?”
Roman did not answer immediately.
“I think Daniel worried I would see Gabriel in him.”
“Do you?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
My throat tightened.
“How?”
“His eyes.”
I thought of Roman’s gray eyes.
Eli’s were darker.
But in certain light...
I had never noticed.
Of course I had never noticed.
Why would I?
“Does Eli know?”
“No.”
“Why did you tell me?”
“You asked.”
“That’s a terrible answer.”
“It’s the truthful one.”
I stood and paced.
“What do I do?”
Roman’s voice softened.
“That is not mine to decide.”
“You know more than anyone.”
“That still doesn’t make it mine.”
For the first time, I understood something important about him.
He was trying very hard not to become another person who controlled our family through information.
Maybe because Dad had spent seventeen years teaching him not to.
I called Eli.
Not from the shop.
Not while I was upset.
I drove home first.
Made tea.
Sat at our kitchen table.
Then I called.
“Can you come home?”
“Is it bad?”
“No.”
“Tess.”
“It’s important.”
He arrived forty minutes later.
Backpack over one shoulder.
Anxiety all over his face.
I put Dad’s letters on the table.
Eli looked at them.
“What is this?”
“Dad kept records about your biological father.”
His face went still.
“My father?”
“Your biological father.”
“Dad was my father.”
“I know.”
That answer came easily.
Immediately.
Dad was Eli’s father.
Nothing I had learned changed that.
Eli sat slowly.
“Who was he?”
I told him.
Not all at once.
Not dramatically.
Gabriel Mercer.
Mom.
The letters.
The fact that Gabriel had left.
May you like
The fact that Dad adopted him.
The fact that Roman was his biological uncle.
