Chương 9
Her face hardened.
He saw shame beneath it.
That did not make the hardness disappear.
“That is not a simple question.”
“It seems pretty simple.”
“No. It seems simple because you get to discover the hypocrisy in one afternoon. I lived inside it for thirty-eight years.”
Daniel stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father chose you. Completely. Without reservation. And I spent the rest of our marriage terrified that one day he would regret it.”
“So you made blood sacred.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“I made certainty sacred.”
Daniel almost pitied her.
Then he pictured Lily on the ballroom floor.
“That’s worse.”
“I know.”
He had not expected her to say that.
Eleanor continued.
“The more your father loved you, the more ashamed I became. When you married Rachel, I told myself my objection was that everything happened too quickly.”
“It didn’t.”
“I know.”
“When Lily was born—”
“She was already two when I met Rachel.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. Say what you mean.”
Eleanor looked tired.
“When Lily became yours, I watched Charles’s choice repeat itself.”
Daniel went still.
“He had been dead three months when I started the adoption process.”
“I know.”
“So you punished her for reminding you of Dad?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor looked at him sharply.
“I was afraid you would make your entire life around proving you were better than me.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“My life is not about you.”
The words landed harder than he meant them to.
Eleanor looked down.
He let them stay.
After a moment she said, “I saw that test in your office and thought you had finally checked Lily’s paternity.”
“You thought I was secretly testing my own daughter.”
“Yes.”
“And your first reaction was relief.”
Eleanor did not answer.
Daniel stood.
“That’s the part I can’t get past.”
“I understand.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
He picked up his coat.
She said his name.
He turned.
“Did Andrew ever try to contact me?”
Eleanor’s face changed.
“Yes.”
Daniel stopped breathing for a moment.
“When?”
“When you were twenty-one.”
“What?”
“He wrote.”
“Where is the letter?”
“I destroyed it.”
Daniel stared at her.
There was no excuse large enough to fit into the room.
Eleanor knew it.
“I was wrong.”
He laughed once.
“You keep finding new meanings for that sentence.”
“I know.”
“What did it say?”
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“Try.”
“He said he had no intention of disrupting your life. He said he wanted you to know he existed. He left an address.”
“And you burned it?”
“I tore it up.”
Daniel walked to the door.
“Daniel.”
He stopped.
“Charles never knew about the letter.”
That made it worse.
He left without answering.
He drove for almost an hour.
Not anywhere useful.
Across the river, through neighborhoods he had no reason to visit, past a hardware store where a man in an orange vest was dragging bags of mulch inside before rain.
At a traffic light, Daniel suddenly remembered Charles teaching him to parallel park.
Not the lesson.
The argument.
Daniel had been sixteen and furious because Charles kept saying, “Turn now,” when Daniel believed he had already turned.
“You can’t say now after now,” Daniel had shouted.
Charles had laughed so hard he had to get out of the car.
Daniel sat at the red light gripping the steering wheel.
His father had known.
His father had stayed.
His father had apparently chosen him before Daniel could choose anything back.
The light turned green.
Someone honked.
Daniel drove home.
Rachel was fixing the kitchen drawer.
It had started sticking again.
She sat on the floor with a screwdriver and looked up when he entered.
“How bad?”
He leaned against the counter.
“She destroyed a letter from Bell when I was twenty-one.”
Rachel put the screwdriver down.
“Oh.”
“He wanted to contact me.”
“Daniel.”
“I could have known him.”
“Yes.”
“He died three years later.”
Rachel’s face changed.
“He died when you were twenty-four?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel looked toward the window.
“She stole that.”
Rachel waited.
“I don’t know what to do with that.”
“You don’t have to do anything tonight.”
“I want to break something.”
“Not the drawer.”
He almost smiled.
“It’s already broken.”
“I’m fixing it.”
“That’s optimistic.”
Rachel sat back.
“You can be angry.”
“I am.”
“You can be angry at Charles too.”
Daniel looked at her.
“For what?”
“For agreeing to keep it from you.”
“He was protecting me.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t believe that?”
“I believe he probably believed it.”
Daniel sat on the floor opposite her.
Rachel picked up the screwdriver again.
“Parents can love you and still make decisions you spend years paying for.”
He watched her tighten the hinge.
“Is this about my parents or yours?”
“Yes.”
He laughed.
She handed him the screwdriver.
“Hold that.”
“What am I doing?”
“Being useful.”
He held it.
They fixed the drawer.
The next week Matthew Bell replied to Daniel’s email.
He wrote only six lines.
He knew Daniel’s name.
That was the first thing.
His father had mentioned Eleanor Whitmore years ago.
That was the second.
Matthew did not know whether Andrew believed Daniel was his son.
That was the third.
He was willing to meet.
Daniel read the message alone.
Then he immediately showed Rachel.
She looked at him.
“Progress.”
“I’m trainable.”
“Barely.”
They met Matthew at a coffee shop in Baltimore.
Not because it was private.
Because Matthew chose it.
Daniel had imagined someone who looked like him.
Matthew did not.
He was shorter, broader, with thinning brown hair and pale eyes.
Daniel felt embarrassed by his relief.
Then embarrassed by being embarrassed.
Matthew ordered tea.
Daniel ordered coffee.
Neither drank much.
“My dad talked about your mother twice,” Matthew said.
Daniel waited.
“The first time I was maybe fourteen. We drove past one of your hotels and he made some comment about architects not getting credit after rich people put their names on buildings.”
Daniel smiled faintly.
May you like
“That sounds healthy.”
“He could be petty.”
