Chương 7
“It isn’t because I want Sarah back.”
“I know.”
“I don’t even know if she can stand being in a room with me.”
“That’s not the question.”
Daniel looked through the glass at Richard.
“I don’t know who I am in this.”
Claire stopped folding the paper.
“That is the question.”
He turned to her.
Claire’s eyes were wet but steady.
“I love you. I also spent three years building a life with a man whose grief was part of the furniture. I thought I understood it. I thought I understood you.”
“I’m still me.”
“No.”
The word was gentle.
“You found out you have a daughter six hours ago.”
Daniel looked away.
Claire unfolded the paper.
“Whatever happens with Sarah, whatever happens with your father, you have to become somebody different now.”
“And us?”
She placed the billing sheet on the table.
“We stop the wedding.”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
Claire kept talking before he could respond.
“Not because Sarah came back. Because making vows six weeks from now while you’re learning how to say your daughter’s name would be insane.”
He almost argued.
Then he nodded.
Claire breathed out.
It hurt.
He could see that.
It hurt him too.
But for once in his life, the obvious loss did not need to become a fight.
“Are we done?” he asked.
Claire looked down at her hands.
“I don’t know.”
That answer stayed with him.
At dawn, firefighters found the document box.
It had been crushed along one corner but remained closed.
Detective Chen called Daniel herself.
“Do not come to the site.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You absolutely were.”
He looked across the hospital room.
Sarah was asleep in a chair beside Lily.
“No comment.”
Chen continued.
“The box is going directly into evidence.”
“Can you tell me what’s inside?”
“Not yet.”
“My company may be implicated.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t tell you.”
Daniel rubbed his face.
“Is my father leaving?”
“He’s free to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because being a terrible father isn’t the charge we’re investigating.”
Daniel looked at Sarah.
“What are you investigating?”
“Potential fraud, evidence tampering, coercion, obstruction. And depending on what’s in that box, maybe more.”
“Mateo Ruiz.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
When he ended the call, Sarah was awake.
“How much did you hear?”
“Enough.”
She looked at Lily sleeping across two chairs pushed together.
Daniel sat opposite her.
“You should hate me.”
Sarah looked tired.
“I tried.”
He frowned.
She rubbed her forehead.
“For about a year, I hated you every morning.”
“Why mornings?”
“Lily woke up at five twenty.”
Daniel almost smiled.
Sarah did not.
“She’d scream. I’d feed her. She’d fall asleep on me. And I would sit there thinking you were probably sleeping in some clean apartment in Chicago with no idea she existed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I am.”
“I know.”
He leaned forward.
“Why did you keep the picture?”
Sarah looked toward the window.
“I told Lily her father died.”
Daniel swallowed.
“She asked what you looked like.”
“You could have shown her anyone.”
“I’m not a monster.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
She touched the necklace.
“She knew your name was Daniel. She knew you laughed too loud in restaurants. She knew you hated mushrooms and loved bad action movies.”
Daniel stared at her.
“You told her that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sarah looked at him.
“Because dead people are easier to forgive than missing ones.”
That sentence stayed between them.
Daniel looked at Lily.
“Does she really think I’m her father?”
“She thinks what five-year-olds think. That adults know what they’re doing.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Sarah gave a quiet laugh.
Then winced and held her ribs.
Daniel stood instinctively.
She raised a hand.
“I’m fine.”
He sat again.
“Can I do a paternity test?”
Sarah’s face closed slightly.
“Yes.”
“I’m not questioning you.”
“You should.”
He blinked.
She leaned back.
“You met me again yesterday. After five years. You should verify everything.”
Daniel thought about that.
“Okay.”
“The court will probably want one anyway.”
“You’re expecting court?”
“I’m expecting you to want rights.”
He looked at Lily.
“Yes.”
Sarah nodded.
“And I’m expecting myself to be terrified of that.”
He turned back.
“I won’t take her from you.”
“You don’t know what you’ll do.”
“I do.”
“No.”
Her voice hardened.
“You do not get to promise things because they sound good in a hospital.”
Daniel shut his mouth.
Sarah’s expression softened by a fraction.
“Show me instead.”
So he did.
Not quickly.
That was the difficult part.
Money could move quickly.
Lawyers could move quickly.
Daniel had spent most of his adult life surrounded by people who solved inconvenience before he fully experienced it.
Fatherhood did not behave that way.
Lily did not care that he could rearrange meetings.
She cared that he forgot she hated orange juice with pulp.
She cared that he did not know the song she wanted in the car.
She cared that when she said “the purple one,” he was somehow supposed to understand which purple marker among twelve purple-adjacent markers she meant.
The DNA test came back at 99.99 percent probability.
Daniel stared at the result on his phone in the parking lot outside Sarah’s temporary rental.
Then he sat in his car for twenty minutes.
He did not cry.
He kept touching the screen as though the number might change.
Sarah found him there.
She knocked on the window.
Daniel lowered it.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
He laughed.
She leaned against the car door.
“You thought I lied?”
“No.”
“You thought maybe Richard lied?”
“Yes.”
“Fair.”
Daniel looked at the report again.
“I’m her father.”
“Yes.”
“I missed everything.”
Sarah folded her arms.
“Yes.”
“First word.”
“Ball.”
“First step.”
“Fourteen months.”
“First tooth.”
“Bottom left.”
He looked at her.
Sarah looked back.
“I wrote things down.”
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“In case someday.”
Daniel’s eyes burned.
She looked away before he had to.
May you like
The criminal investigation widened.
The box from B2 contained more than Laird had promised.
