Chương 6
A certified-mail receipt.
A copy of a note Olivia had written to Victoria from the hospital after Noah’s birth.
Mom, please don’t tell anyone yet. I can’t handle questions.
Victoria had underlined anyone.
Olivia stared at it.
Daniel read over her shoulder.
“She probably decided that included me.”
Olivia laughed bitterly.
“It included Facebook.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because you told me when we met again.”
That was true.
She had.
So many ordinary conversations now contained explosive devices they had walked past without noticing.
Daniel sat.
“I want a paternity test.”
“Obviously.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
He looked at her.
“You think I’m pushing.”
“I think it’s eleven forty-seven and my mother has been lying to both of us for eight years.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Olivia folded her arms.
“You want an answer? I don’t know what I think.”
Daniel nodded.
That irritated her.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“That calm nod.”
“What should I do instead?”
“I don’t know. Be angry.”
“I am angry.”
“You don’t look angry.”
He stared at her.
Then laughed once.
Not kindly.
“You want me to punch another wall?”
The sentence landed harder than he intended.
Olivia went still.
Daniel immediately looked away.
“Sorry.”
“No. Don’t apologize.”
“I shouldn’t have said it.”
“But you did.”
He stood and walked to the sink.
For several seconds he ran water over a coffee cup that was already clean.
“My mother brought that up,” Olivia said.
He turned off the faucet.
“What?”
“The wall.”
He kept facing the sink.
“Of course she did.”
“She said you scared her.”
“I scared you.”
Olivia did not answer.
Daniel turned.
“I did.”
“Once.”
“Once is enough.”
“I know.”
He leaned against the counter.
“I was thirty-two and losing my mind and I hit drywall instead of a person. I spent years telling myself those things mattered. And they do. But it still happened.”
Olivia looked down at her hands.
“I wasn’t afraid you’d hit me.”
“Were you afraid of me?”
She took too long.
Daniel swallowed.
“Okay.”
“I was afraid of everything then.”
“That includes me.”
“Yes.”
He nodded again.
This time she let him.
After a while he said, “Maybe she saw something real and made an unforgivable decision with it.”
Olivia looked at him.
“That’s generous.”
“No. It isn’t.”
He rubbed his eyes.
“If I make her a monster, I don’t have to think about whether I gave her anything to be afraid of.”
“You didn’t make her lie.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t make her manipulate Noah.”
“I know.”
“Stop helping her.”
“I’m not.”
“It sounds like it.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“And it sounds like you’re looking for a reason this is partly my fault.”
The accuracy of it made her furious.
She stood.
“I’m going to bed.”
“Fine.”
“You can sleep downstairs.”
He laughed again.
“That didn’t take long.”
“Don’t.”
“No, say it. Apparently tonight is for honesty.”
Olivia turned.
“You stopped looking for me.”
“There it is.”
“You did.”
“I thought you had threatened legal action.”
“You knew my mother hated you.”
“I also knew you were capable of deciding you didn’t want me.”
“Seven months.”
“My mother died.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Daniel’s voice rose.
Then he glanced upstairs and immediately lowered it.
“Do you know what that year was like?”
Olivia folded her arms tighter.
“No. Because you weren’t there.”
He closed his eyes.
For a second she regretted it.
Then he looked at her.
“And you weren’t at my mother’s funeral.”
“I didn’t know she died.”
“I know.”
“That’s the point.”
“No, Liv. The point is we were both missing information, and now you’re angry at me because your mother was better at lying than I was at figuring it out.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you’re doing.”
She hated him briefly.
Not deeply.
Not permanently.
But genuinely.
Human love was inconvenient that way. It did not prevent ugly flashes. Sometimes it provided better targets.
Daniel picked up his jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“The garage.”
“You’re sleeping in the garage?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I’m going to finish the stupid cabinet because if I stay in here we’re going to say things we can’t unsay.”
Olivia almost told him that sounded cowardly.
Instead she looked at the old letter on the counter.
“Fine.”
Daniel left.
A few minutes later she heard the garage door open.
Then the scrape of sandpaper.
Olivia sat alone in the kitchen until after one in the morning.
She read everything.
The documents did not produce one clean villain and two innocent victims.
They produced something worse.
History.
Daniel had called repeatedly at first.
Then less.
He had emailed.
Then stopped.
Olivia had written him twice from an account Victoria did not know about, but both messages had gone to an address Daniel had abandoned after it was hacked.
Victoria had intercepted one certified letter.
She had returned another unopened.
She had lied deliberately.
But she had not created every failure.
Pride had helped.
Exhaustion had helped.
A dead mother, a complicated pregnancy, changed phone numbers, financial stress, fear, and the terrible confidence of people who believed silence meant what they most feared had helped.
Victoria had simply stood at the crossroads and changed the signs.
At 1:22, Olivia found something that made her sit upright.
A printout from seven years earlier.
An email sent from Victoria to a family-law attorney.
The subject line read: PATERNITY QUESTION.
Olivia read the short exchange.
Victoria had asked whether Daniel could establish parental rights if he later discovered Noah existed.
The attorney’s answer was cautious, general, and full of conditions.
What mattered was Victoria’s question.
What if the mother does not wish to identify him?
Olivia photographed the page.
Then she photographed every other document.
At 1:36 she texted Victoria.
Did you ever speak to an attorney about keeping Daniel away from Noah?
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Disappeared.
Returned.
Finally:
We need to discuss this in person.
Olivia typed:
Yes or no.
Nothing.
May you like
At 1:41:
I was trying to understand your options.
