CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 4
After I put Oliver to bed, I sat beside him until he fell asleep.
He kept one hand wrapped around my finger.
Even in sleep, he would not let go.
“Daddy?” he whispered once.
“I’m here.”
“Are you mad at me?”
I bent over him, my chest breaking open quietly.
“No, buddy. Never at you.”
“Are you still my dad?”
I closed my eyes.
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
I kissed his knuckles.
“Promise.”
Only after his breathing softened did I walk back downstairs.
Claire was sitting on the sofa with the DNA paper on the table between us like a loaded weapon.
Her face was swollen from crying.
I felt nothing when I looked at her.
That scared me more than rage.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
She shook her head.
“Daniel, please. It was one mistake.”
“No. A mistake lasts a moment. This lasted five years.”
She flinched.
I sat across from her.
“Who is Eric Voss?”
She stared at her hands.
“A man from work.”
“I know that part.”
Her shoulders began shaking.
“It happened after the second miscarriage. You were trying so hard to be strong, and I felt like I was disappearing. Eric listened. He made me feel like I wasn’t broken.”
I looked at the family photos on the wall.
Me holding Oliver at the beach.
Me teaching him to ride a scooter.
Me asleep on the couch with him curled against my chest.
“And when you found out you were pregnant?”
“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I hoped he was yours.”
“Hoped.”
The word tasted bitter.
She looked up quickly.
“I wanted him to be yours.”
“But when he was born?”
Claire’s eyes filled again.
“I saw Eric’s face.”
Silence.
There it was.
The truth beneath every lie.
“You knew from the beginning.”
She whispered, “Not for sure.”
“Claire.”
She covered her face.
“Yes.”
I leaned back slowly.
For a moment, I could not hear the storm anymore.
Only my own heartbeat.
“Did Eric know?”
She did not answer.
That was answer enough.
A phone buzzed on the coffee table.
Claire’s.
A message lit the screen.
Eric: Did Daniel find out?
I looked at her.
Her crying stopped.
Because she knew the same thing I did.
May you like
This was no longer about one old mistake.
This was a conspiracy I had been living inside.
