Chương 9
“Your mother?”
“Good point.”
He folded the lab report.
“I want to talk to her.”
Olivia stopped.
“Why?”
“Because I need to.”
“No.”
Daniel stared.
“No?”
“You don’t go alone.”
“I wasn’t asking to fight her.”
“I know.”
“You think I’m going to lose my temper?”
“I think she’ll manipulate you.”
He laughed softly.
“That’s your concern?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
Olivia threw the dish towel onto the counter.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re doing that thing where you sound reasonable so I sound unreasonable.”
“Maybe you are unreasonable.”
She stared at him.
He raised both hands.
“On this one issue.”
“Great recovery.”
Daniel sat.
“I need to ask her why she kept the photograph.”
Olivia’s anger eased.
She had wondered too.
If Victoria had wanted Daniel erased, why preserve his letters, photographs, receipts, and evidence of her own lies in a wooden box?
“She could have thrown everything away,” Daniel said.
“She should have.”
“Maybe.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t know if I want her to have thrown away the only copy of Noah’s newborn picture she kept from me.”
Olivia looked at him.
He rubbed his thumb over the folded lab report.
“I hate that she had it.”
His voice dropped.
“But I’m glad it exists.”
That Thursday, Victoria agreed to meet them at a quiet coffee shop halfway between her house and theirs.
Olivia chose a public place intentionally.
Not because she feared violence.
Because she feared family habits.
Victoria was strongest in rooms she controlled.
Her house.
Her dining table.
Her rules.
At the coffee shop she was simply a fifty-five-year-old woman in pearl earrings who had ordered tea and not touched it.
She stood when they arrived.
Daniel remained standing.
Olivia sat.
Eventually they all did.
Victoria looked at Olivia.
“How is Noah?”
“Safe.”
“I asked how he is.”
“He has nightmares.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“He’s also laughing. Going to school. Eating too much syrup. He’s seven.”
“I would like to see him.”
“No.”
The answer came easily.
Victoria looked down.
“Did you get the results?”
Daniel placed a copy on the table.
She did not touch it.
“I knew.”
Daniel stared.
“You knew or believed?”
“I knew.”
“How?”
Victoria hesitated.
“Timing.”
“That isn’t knowing.”
“Olivia had not been with anyone else.”
Daniel looked at Olivia.
She nodded.
Victoria continued.
“And after Noah was born…”
She stopped.
“What?” Olivia asked.
Her mother looked toward the window.
A delivery truck moved slowly past outside.
“I had a test done.”
Daniel’s chair scraped the floor.
Olivia did not understand at first.
“What?”
Victoria’s fingers tightened around her cup.
“I had access to a sample from Daniel.”
“No.”
Daniel’s face had gone blank.
“How?”
Victoria closed her eyes.
“You left a toothbrush at our house once.”
Olivia stared at her.
Daniel stood.
“You had a DNA test done without my consent?”
“It was not a legal test.”
“That is not the point.”
“I needed to know.”
Olivia heard herself say, “When?”
“When Noah was three months old.”
Three months.
All the air seemed to leave the coffee shop.
Three months after Victoria had told Daniel the baby died.
Three months after Olivia had held Noah through colic and cried in the shower where no one could hear.
Her mother had known.
Not suspected.
Known.
“You kept it from me,” Olivia whispered.
“I thought telling you would only reopen everything.”
Daniel walked away from the table.
He stopped beside the condiment counter, one hand on his hip.
A teenage employee stacking napkins glanced at him, then quickly looked away.
Victoria whispered, “I am sorry.”
Olivia laughed once.
Her mother flinched.
“Where is that test?”
“In the box.”
“It wasn’t.”
“There is another compartment.”
Olivia almost admired the absurdity.
“How many compartments does that thing have?”
Victoria blinked.
Then, unexpectedly, Daniel laughed from across the room.
It was not amusement.
But it broke something.
Even Olivia smiled for half a second.
Victoria looked bewildered.
“Sorry,” Olivia said. “Apparently this is funny now.”
“It isn’t.”
“I know.”
The smile disappeared.
Daniel returned.
“Why did you keep everything?”
Victoria stared at her tea.
“Because throwing it away felt like…”
She stopped.
Daniel waited.
“Like what?”
“Like killing him twice.”
No one spoke.
Victoria touched the rim of the cup.
“When I told you Noah had not survived, I went home and was sick in my bathroom.”
Daniel’s face remained hard.
“I do not tell you that for sympathy.”
“Good.”
“I knew immediately that I had done something terrible.”
“Then why didn’t you fix it?”
“Because the next morning Olivia told me she had decided she would raise the baby without you.”
Olivia stared.
“I said I could.”
“You said you would.”
“Because you told me he wanted nothing to do with us.”
“I know.”
Victoria’s voice cracked.
The first crack Olivia had heard.
“I know.”
She looked down.
“And then each day there was a reason not to undo it. You were calmer. Daniel stopped calling. Noah was born. Your father became ill. There was always something.”
“Dad died four years later.”
“I know.”
“So don’t use him.”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
She blinked the tears back.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“You tested my DNA.”
Victoria nodded.
“You confirmed Noah was my son.”
“Yes.”
“And still said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Why keep the result?”
Victoria looked at him.
“Because I thought one day I might have enough courage to tell you.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“You waited for a seven-year-old to find it.”
Her face tightened.
“Yes.”
Daniel sat back.
Olivia had expected rage.
Instead he seemed tired.
Older.
“You told him he would lose Olivia.”
Victoria shook her head immediately.
“I did not say those words.”
“He heard them.”
“I told him his mother would be very upset if she knew he had taken something from my room and that families sometimes change when trust is broken.”
Olivia stared.
“That is worse.”
May you like
Victoria looked confused.
“You didn’t even have the courage to threaten him directly. You let a child build the threat himself.”
