Chương 5
“My wife stays.”
Eleanor’s eyes lifted toward the upstairs landing.
“What about Lily?”
“She stays out of this.”
“Then perhaps you should consider whether standing in an open doorway is wise.”
Rachel almost admired the precision of that.
Even frightened, Eleanor could find the practical weakness in someone else’s position.
Daniel stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
Rachel remained inside with the door cracked enough to hear.
Eleanor noticed.
She said nothing.
Daniel handed her the laboratory report.
This time she took it.
She read the first page.
Then the second.
Her eyes stopped at Peter Whitmore’s full name.
Rachel watched from the hallway.
Eleanor’s hand tightened on the paper.
“You involved Peter.”
“He volunteered.”
“He had no right.”
“He had every right to provide his own DNA.”
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“I’m asking who my father was.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Charles Whitmore was your father.”
“Was he my biological father?”
Silence.
Daniel waited.
“Mom.”
She folded the report along the existing crease.
“You have spent almost forty years calling him Dad. Is a laboratory going to change that?”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only answer that matters.”
“To you.”
“To anyone with sense.”
Daniel stared at her.
Rachel could see the child in him then, though he was taller than Eleanor by nearly a foot.
Not a literal child.
Something older.
The part that had spent decades assuming the adults knew what they were doing.
“Did he know?” Daniel asked.
Eleanor looked away.
That was answer enough to change the air.
Daniel stepped back.
Eleanor reached toward him.
He moved before she touched him.
“Did he know?”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
Daniel stood very still.
Rachel pressed her fingertips against the wall.
“How long?”
“Daniel.”
“How long did he know?”
“Since before you were born.”
His face changed.
Eleanor hurried on.
“He loved you. You cannot turn this into some melodramatic revision of your childhood because a laboratory has made you curious.”
Rachel opened the door.
“Stop.”
Eleanor looked at her.
Rachel stepped onto the porch.
“You don’t get to tell him how much this is allowed to hurt.”
“I am trying to prevent him from destroying his own memories.”
“No. You’re trying to control which version of them he’s allowed to have.”
Eleanor’s eyes flashed.
“This does not concern you.”
Rachel almost laughed.
“You ripped something off my daughter’s head because you misread your son’s DNA test, but sure. Let’s try that argument again.”
Eleanor looked toward Daniel.
He was staring at the sidewalk.
“Who?” he asked.
His mother became quiet.
“Daniel.”
“Who was he?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he has been dead for years, and knowing his name will not improve your life.”
“That’s my decision.”
“I am your mother.”
“Apparently that part isn’t in dispute.”
Eleanor flinched.
Daniel saw it and immediately looked ashamed.
That was Daniel too.
Even wounded, he could feel guilty for using the right knife.
He rubbed one hand over his mouth.
“Go home.”
Eleanor’s expression recovered.
“We need to discuss the foundation.”
“No.”
“The board is meeting tomorrow.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
“Probably.”
“Daniel, people depend on you.”
“Then maybe you should have thought about that before turning a child’s scalp into a public relations problem.”
Eleanor looked at Rachel.
For once Rachel had nothing to add.
Eleanor handed the report back.
Before walking away, she said, “His name was Andrew Bell.”
Daniel looked up.
Eleanor was already halfway down the steps.
She did not turn around.
Peter Whitmore came over the following morning with bagels and the expression of a man who had already yelled at several people before breakfast.
He walked into the kitchen, kissed Rachel’s cheek, squeezed Lily’s shoulder, and told Daniel, “You look terrible.”
Daniel said, “Good morning to you too.”
Peter set the bag down.
“I brought cinnamon raisin because your daughter has better judgment than you.”
Lily corrected him.
“I like everything bagels.”
Peter stared at her.
“I’ve failed as an uncle.”
“Great-uncle.”
“That’s worse.”
Lily almost smiled.
The adults waited until she left for school.
Rachel drove her herself.
The photographers were gone, but a dark SUV sat half a block away. She memorized the license plate without knowing why, then felt ridiculous because it belonged to a parent dropping off two children.
At the school entrance, Lily stopped.
“You’ll pick me up?”
“Yes.”
“Not Dad?”
“I can.”
“Okay.”
Rachel crouched.
“If you want to stay home—”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
Lily looked through the glass doors.
“I have library.”
That settled it.
Seven-year-olds had priorities adults often lacked.
Rachel watched her go inside.
On the drive home, she cried at a red light.
Not much.
Just enough that she had to wipe under one eye before the signal changed.
Peter was pouring coffee when she returned.
Daniel had the DNA report open between them.
“You told him Mom admitted it?” Peter asked.
“Yes.”
“And named Bell?”
“Yes.”
Peter shook his head.
“I knew there was a Bell.”
Daniel looked up sharply.
“What?”
“I didn’t know the first name.”
“You never mentioned that.”
“I didn’t know it mattered.”
“It mattered enough that Dad asked whether you’d still treat me like family.”
Peter leaned against the counter.
“Your father was sick, Daniel.”
“That conversation happened twenty years ago.”
“He was drunk.”
“So?”
“So drunk people say weird things.”
Rachel sat at the table.
Peter looked at her.
“Not helping?”
“Not yet.”
He sighed.
“Your father and I had one conversation about it. One. We were in Maine. You were nineteen, maybe twenty. He asked if blood mattered to me. I thought he was talking about the trust because he was obsessed with estate planning that year.”
“Did he say I wasn’t his?”
“No.”
“Did he mention Bell?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
Peter stared into his coffee.
“He said, ‘The boy is mine because I stayed.’”
Daniel looked away.
Peter’s voice softened.
“I thought he was being dramatic.”
May you like
“My father?”
“He had range.”
