Chương 4
Daniel turned toward Margaret.
Margaret was watching them.
He walked back.
“Did you call Claire?”
“No.”
“Did anyone know about the payment?”
“My accountant. The foundation administrator. Your venue coordinator, presumably.”
Richard said, “And anyone Claire told after she found out.”
Claire stared at him.
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
Richard’s mouth hardened.
Daniel saw it.
A calculation.
“What?” Daniel asked.
“Nothing.”
“No. What?”
Richard shook his head.
“This is already enough.”
Daniel took a step toward him.
“You know who called.”
“I have no idea.”
“You just reacted.”
“I reacted because this conversation is grotesque.”
Margaret gave him a long look.
“Was it Evelyn?”
Richard froze.
Daniel noticed.
“Who’s Evelyn?”
Richard said, “Nobody.”
Margaret laughed once.
It was quiet and exhausted.
“Still your answer for inconvenient women.”
Richard turned on her.
“Don’t do this.”
“Who is Evelyn?” Daniel repeated.
Claire spoke before Richard could.
“Evelyn Mercer?”
Daniel looked at her.
“You know the name?”
“She messaged me two months ago.”
Richard’s expression changed.
“Claire.”
Now everyone noticed.
Claire looked almost relieved to have something concrete to be angry about.
“She said she was your cousin.”
“She is.”
Margaret stared at Richard.
“No, she isn’t.”
The silence tightened again.
Daniel’s patience disappeared.
“Who is Evelyn?”
Richard looked toward the guests.
“Your half-sister.”
Daniel actually smiled.
It was not because anything was funny.
His body had simply run out of appropriate reactions.
“My what?”
Richard removed his glasses again.
Daniel nearly knocked them from his hand.
“Stop doing that.”
Richard stared at him.
“Doing what?”
“Buying yourself ten seconds.”
He put the glasses back on.
Margaret said, “Evelyn is Richard and Susan’s daughter.”
Daniel turned to her.
“You said Susan couldn’t have children.”
“She couldn’t carry a pregnancy. Evelyn was adopted two years before you were born.”
Daniel tried to assemble the family he thought he had known.
Susan had never mentioned a daughter.
His father had never mentioned a daughter.
There had been no framed photographs, no Christmas cards, no childhood stories.
“Where is she?”
“Philadelphia,” Richard said.
“Why don’t I know she exists?”
Richard looked tired suddenly.
Old.
Because he was sixty-three, Daniel thought. It was such a strange thing to notice. His father had become an old man while Daniel remained busy seeing him as a fixed object.
“She was eleven when you came to live with us.”
“Came to live with you?”
“You were an infant.”
“I know what an infant is.”
Richard’s voice hardened.
“She struggled with the arrangement.”
Margaret looked at him with disgust.
“Tell him.”
“I am.”
“No. You’re trimming.”
Richard turned toward her.
“This has nothing to do with you.”
Margaret’s cheek was swelling where Claire had struck her.
She did not touch it this time.
“It has everything to do with me.”
Daniel said, “Tell me.”
Richard hesitated.
Margaret did it for him.
“Evelyn knew you were Richard’s biological child. Susan asked her to keep it private. After Susan died, Evelyn wanted to tell you. Richard refused. They fought. She left when she was nineteen and cut contact.”
Daniel’s mind moved immediately to memory.
He was eight when Susan died.
He remembered a girl.
Not a sister.
A girl at the funeral with short dark hair and a black coat.
She had crouched in front of him outside the church.
He remembered her saying his name.
Not Daniel.
Danny.
He remembered his father pulling him away.
For thirty years that fragment had existed in his head without context.
A woman crying at Susan’s funeral.
A hand on his shoulder.
Richard saying, “Get in the car.”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“She was at Mom’s funeral.”
Richard looked at him.
“You remember that?”
Margaret whispered, “Of course he does.”
Daniel looked toward Claire.
“Show me Evelyn’s message.”
Claire hesitated.
“You deleted it?”
“No.”
“Show me.”
She pulled her phone from the small satin pouch her maid of honor had been holding.
Her hands were shaking now.
She unlocked it and searched.
Daniel stood beside her.
Margaret remained close enough to see.
Richard did not approach.
The message was from an account called Evelyn M.
Congratulations on the wedding. We haven’t met properly. I’m related to Daniel’s family. Before you marry him, there are things he deserves to know. I’ve tried contacting him directly. His father has blocked every route I had. If Daniel ever wants the truth, tell him Evelyn Mercer is not his cousin.
Claire had answered:
I think you have the wrong person.
Evelyn had replied:
I wish I did.
Nothing else.
Daniel looked at the date.
June 3.
Two and a half months earlier.
“You never told me.”
Claire locked the phone.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought she was unstable.”
“Based on what?”
“Your father.”
Daniel looked at Richard.
Claire continued, quieter now.
“I showed him.”
Daniel’s eyes remained on his father.
“When?”
“The next day.”
“And what did he say?”
“That Evelyn had been estranged for years and had a history of trying to interfere with the family.”
Richard said, “Which is true.”
Margaret’s expression sharpened.
“Interfere?”
Richard ignored her.
Daniel asked Claire, “So when someone called you today and mentioned Margaret, you believed it.”
Claire’s chin lifted.
“I had forty minutes before the ceremony. You had lied about meeting Margaret. You lied about the money. Your father had told me Evelyn was disturbed. Then a woman called and told me there was another secret. I panicked.”
“You hit a sixty-seven-year-old woman.”
Claire’s face went rigid.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“Daniel.”
He looked at her.
“She struck me. She should not have. But don’t use me to avoid what you need to deal with.”
Claire stared at Margaret.
Daniel did too.
Margaret looked toward Richard.
“He has spent your whole life making women carry the ugliest part of his choices.”
Richard’s face hardened.
“That is enough.”
Margaret’s voice remained calm.
“No. It was enough thirty years ago.”
Daniel closed the envelope.
“What happened after I was born?”
Margaret inhaled.
May you like
This time she looked at the guests.
Daniel understood.
