Chương 10
“Yes.”
“Were you afraid of him?”
“Yes.”
“After he died?”
Margaret looked at the floor.
“I was afraid of you.”
Daniel nodded.
“Did you read this?”
“Yes.”
“Before today?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“2004.”
“So you knew her version.”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe it?”
Margaret’s eyes moved to Thomas’s note.
“Not all at once.”
Daniel pushed the school photograph toward her.
“Did Dad send this?”
Margaret stared at it.
“I never saw that before.”
Daniel watched her closely.
Claire did too.
Margaret picked it up.
Her thumb touched the corner.
“That was second grade.”
“You’re sure?”
“You hated that sweater.”
Daniel almost smiled.
Margaret turned the photograph over.
She saw Thomas’s handwriting.
Her shoulders dropped.
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel looked away.
“There’s something about paternity.”
Margaret frowned.
He showed her the note.
Her reaction was immediate.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Daniel saw it.
“What?”
Margaret sat down.
“What does that mean?”
She said nothing.
“Mom.”
“I hoped that wasn’t in there.”
Daniel gave a short laugh.
“Fantastic.”
Claire leaned against the table.
“Margaret, what does it mean?”
Margaret looked at Daniel.
“Rebecca told me you had a different biological father than the man her family believed.”
Daniel went still.
“Who?”
“She never gave me a name.”
“Dad knew?”
“I think Thomas did.”
“How?”
“He told me once that Leonard was protecting somebody.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel’s patience broke.
“You always don’t know.”
“I don’t.”
“Then who does?”
Margaret looked at Rebecca’s letter.
“Rebecca.”
Daniel stared at the name.
For the first time since Saturday, the path forward was obvious.
That did not make it easy.
They found a company that transferred old cassettes to digital files, but Daniel refused to send the tape away.
He bought a used cassette player from a local electronics resale shop instead.
The clerk was twenty-three and called it “retro.”
Daniel did not appreciate that.
They listened that evening.
Rebecca’s voice at forty-six was lower than Claire expected.
Nervous.
She began twice.
Stopped.
Started again.
“Daniel, I don’t know what Margaret has told you, and that sentence already sounds like I’m accusing her, which I’m trying not to do.”
Daniel looked down.
On the recording, Rebecca breathed.
“I’ve imagined this so many times that I made you into about twelve different people. Angry. Curious. Happy without me. Miserable because of me. I finally realized all twelve of them were selfish because they were all about what I needed you to feel.”
Claire glanced at Daniel.
He sat on the floor with his back against the sofa.
The recording continued for forty-three minutes.
Rebecca described his birth.
Not poetically.
She complained that the hospital ice chips tasted like the cup. She remembered Margaret repeatedly asking whether the baby’s feet were supposed to look purple. She remembered Thomas bringing coffee and saying the hospital coffee could remove paint.
She said Daniel had sneezed seven times in a row.
Daniel smiled despite himself.
Then Rebecca described handing him to Margaret.
“I thought I was leaving you with the safest person I knew.”
Margaret was not in the room, but Claire felt her presence in the sentence.
Rebecca did not excuse herself.
She described taking Thomas’s money.
She described running.
She described allowing years to pass because each year made returning harder.
Near the end, she said, “The thing I am most ashamed of is not that I was afraid when I was nineteen. I was a kid with a baby and a father who scared me. I forgive that girl more than I used to. I am ashamed of thirty-two. Thirty-five. Forty. There were years I had choices.”
Daniel paused the tape.
He stared at the player.
Claire said nothing.
He restarted it.
Rebecca’s final words were simple.
“If you want the name of your biological father, I’ll tell you. I didn’t put it here because I don’t know whether that truth belongs in your life unless you ask for it.”
The tape clicked.
Daniel sat still.
Claire went to the kitchen and returned with two glasses of water.
He took one.
“Do you want to know?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The answer came immediately.
“Do you want to call her?”
“No.”
Claire sat.
“Okay.”
“I want to see her.”
That took longer.
Rebecca lived outside Tucson.
Daniel found an email address connected to the dental office where she had worked.
He wrote the message three times.
The final version was five sentences.
My name is Daniel Dawson. Margaret gave me your letter and recording today. I know you are alive. I would like to meet you if you are willing. I am not sure what I want beyond that. Please do not contact me by phone yet.
He stared at it for twenty minutes.
Then he sent it.
Rebecca replied nine hours later.
Yes.
Then, beneath it:
I will follow whatever boundaries you set. Thank you for writing.
No speech.
No plea.
Daniel read the response at six the next morning while standing in the kitchen in socks.
Claire watched him over a mug of coffee.
“Well?”
“She said yes.”
“How do you feel?”
He gave her a tired look.
“Like I hate that question.”
“Fair.”
He handed her the phone.
Claire read it.
“She sounds careful.”
“She has practice.”
Two days later, Rebecca sent another message with flight options she could take to Charlotte.
Daniel replied that he preferred to travel to Arizona.
Claire asked whether he wanted her to come.
He said yes.
Then changed his mind.
Then changed it again.
They booked two tickets.
Margaret did not ask to join them.
The night before the flight, Daniel drove to her house alone.
He was gone three hours.
When he returned, Claire was folding laundry on the bed.
“How was it?”
Daniel sat.
“She apologized.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Claire waited.
“I told her apology is not the same thing as repair.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she knows.”
“That sounds like Margaret.”
He nodded.
“She gave me Dad’s wedding ring.”
Claire stopped folding.
May you like
“Why?”
“She said she didn’t want it anymore.”
