Chương 7
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“That’s specific.”
“About Lily knowing who I am. About whether she’d ever be allowed to ask about me. About what signing meant.”
Priya touched the edge of his legal pad.
Aaron continued.
“I knew signing meant Evan could adopt her. I’m not saying I didn’t. Your mother-in-law made it sound like I was being erased on purpose because you were worried Lily might want contact someday.”
“We told you she could have your letters,” Rachel said.
“I know.”
“We sent you pictures twice a year until you stopped answering.”
“I know.”
“You asked us to stop contacting you.”
“I know.”
“So which part did you think was a lie?”
Aaron looked down.
“The part where you said I was doing something decent.”
Nobody spoke.
Aaron rubbed his hands together.
“I wasn’t.”
Rachel sat back.
“I left.”
“Yes.”
“I missed support payments.”
“Yes.”
“I stopped calling because every time I called I was either drunk or trying not to be.”
Rachel said nothing.
“I signed because I knew who was raising her.”
Aaron looked at Evan.
“You.”
Evan did not move.
“Then Diane contacted you.”
“Yeah.”
“And suddenly you changed your mind.”
“No.”
“Looks that way.”
“I changed my mind about whether I understood what was happening.”
“What exactly did she tell you?”
Aaron glanced at Priya again.
This time the attorney answered.
“She represented that Evan had privately expressed uncertainty about remaining married to Rachel and had concerns about assuming permanent parental obligations to Lily if the marriage ended.”
Evan felt Rachel go rigid beside him.
Priya continued.
“She also represented that Rachel intended to prevent future access to information about Aaron after the adoption and that Lily had been given false information concerning his absence.”
“All lies,” Rachel said.
Priya nodded once.
“We have seen documentation that contradicts several of those statements.”
Several.
Evan hated the word.
Aaron looked at him.
“The marriage part wasn’t a lie, though.”
“No.”
Rachel turned sharply toward Evan.
He kept looking at Aaron.
“I had doubts about my marriage.”
Aaron gave a small nod.
“So she told the truth.”
“About one night.”
“Still happened.”
“Yes.”
Rachel’s fingers tightened around her pen.
Evan continued.
“I was angry. I was scared. I said something ugly to my mother because I thought I was talking to my mother, not giving testimony for a future legal fight.”
Aaron looked down.
Evan could hear his own breathing.
“I also went home the next morning. Rachel and I worked on our marriage. We waited more than a year after that before starting the adoption. I’m not asking you to believe I’ve never doubted anything. I’m asking you to understand that doubt isn’t the same thing as leaving.”
Aaron said quietly, “Sometimes it is.”
The room changed.
Evan looked at him.
Aaron was not talking about Evan anymore.
Rachel saw it too.
Her shoulders eased by a fraction.
Aaron stared at the tabletop.
“I told myself for years I was giving Lily space because Rachel had a stable life. Truth was, every year I waited made calling harder. Then it started feeling impossible. Then your mother found me and told me everybody had decided who I was forever.”
Rachel said, “You had opportunities.”
“I know.”
“More than one.”
“I know.”
“She didn’t take those from you.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t make us responsible for them.”
“I’m not.”
“You filed something that delayed our daughter’s adoption.”
“I know.”
“You scared her.”
His head came up.
“I didn’t contact Lily.”
“No. Diane did that part for you.”
Evan put one hand lightly on Rachel’s forearm.
She shook him off.
Aaron looked at Priya.
“What?”
Priya said, “They may not have told you.”
“Told me what?”
Evan answered.
“My mother slapped Lily.”
Aaron froze.
“When?”
“The night she sent you the hearing notice.”
His face drained.
“Why?”
“Because Lily repeated something she’d heard her say.”
“What?”
Evan swallowed.
“That I wasn’t her real father.”
Aaron pushed back from the table.
The chair rolled several inches.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t tell her to say that.”
“I know.”
“I never—I wouldn’t say that to a kid.”
Rachel watched him.
Aaron looked sick.
“I thought she was just…” He stopped.
“Protecting you?” Evan asked.
Aaron gave a humorless laugh.
“Something like that.”
For the first time, Evan saw the absurd symmetry of them.
Two men Diane had convinced she was rescuing.
One from a permanent obligation.
The other from being erased.
Neither had asked.
Priya slid a folder across the table.
“There is one additional issue.”
Evan opened it.
A payment record.
Fifteen hundred dollars from Diane Mercer to Priya’s firm.
He stared at the page.
Rachel leaned closer.
“What is this?”
Aaron’s face reddened.
“She offered to pay for a consultation.”
“You took money from her?”
“I didn’t have fifteen hundred dollars.”
Rachel laughed once.
“You filed against us with my mother-in-law’s money.”
“I had questions.”
“You had fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of questions.”
“Rachel,” Melissa said.
“No. Absolutely not.”
Aaron looked at Rachel.
“She told me if I talked to a lawyer and still wanted the adoption to happen, she’d leave it alone.”
“And you believed her?”
“No,” he said. “But I believed the part where she said I should talk to somebody who wasn’t you.”
That quieted the room.
Because, despite everything, that part was reasonable.
Rachel knew it.
Evan knew it.
Even Melissa did.
People were permitted legal advice.
The poison lay in everything Diane had wrapped around that advice.
Evan closed the folder.
“What do you want now?”
Aaron looked toward Priya.
She did not answer for him.
His thumb moved against his finger again.
“I don’t want custody.”
Rachel’s laugh this time was sharper.
“Good.”
“I don’t want to undo your family.”
“You already delayed it.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do know.”
“What do you want?”
Aaron took a breath.
“I want Lily to know I didn’t disappear because she wasn’t worth staying for.”
May you like
Rachel’s face hardened.
“That is not something a six-year-old exists to fix for you.”
