Chapter 3 - THE FIRST THING GRACE TOLD THE DOCTOR
I took Grace to her pediatrician the next morning.
She wasn’t dangerously malnourished.
She was mildly dehydrated, overtired, and hungry.
That should have made me feel better.
It didn’t.
The doctor crouched beside her.
“Did Grandma forget dinner?”
Grace shook her head.
“Grandma said good girls wait.”
“For what?”
“For Daddy to say Nora can stay.”
I stopped moving.
The doctor looked at me.
I felt humiliation crawl over my skin.
Someone outside our family was hearing what I had missed inside it.
“How many times did Grandma do that?” I asked.
Grace held up three fingers.
She was three.
Three could mean three.
Or yesterday.
Or every time.
I didn’t know which frightened me more.
That afternoon Daniel came to Rachel’s house.
I made him sit on the porch.
“Start at the beginning.”
Paige had been his girlfriend during graduate school in Boston.
They broke up badly.
A few months later, Helen told Daniel that Paige had contacted her and said she was pregnant.
Daniel tried calling.
Paige changed numbers.
Helen later told him Paige had decided not to continue the pregnancy.
Daniel believed her.
“Why would Paige tell your mother instead of you?”
“She and Mom hated each other.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I know.”
Five years passed.
Then six weeks ago Helen called Daniel to the Essex estate.
Nora was there.
Helen told him Paige had lied.
That Paige had kept the baby.
That Paige was now sick and could no longer care for Nora properly.
Daniel demanded proof.
Helen produced a DNA test.
I stared at him.
“You secretly took a DNA test?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s yours?”
“99.99 percent.”
I felt sick.
Not because Nora existed.
Because Daniel had known for six weeks.
“You slept beside me every night.”
“I was trying to figure out how to tell you.”
“For six weeks?”
“My mother said Paige was unstable. She said if we moved too quickly, Paige might take Nora away again.”
“So you let your mother move her into our house?”
“She arrived three days ago.”
“I was in Chicago for four.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
The timing was deliberate.
Helen had waited until I left.
Then another detail clicked.
“How long has your mother known Nora?”
Daniel looked up.
“She says six weeks.”
I thought of Nora sitting comfortably at Helen’s table.
Letting Helen feed her.
Wearing a custom bracelet identical to Grace’s.
“No.”
“What?”
“That child didn’t act like your mother was someone she met six weeks ago.”
Daniel said nothing.
May you like
I leaned forward.
“Ask Helen when she bought the bracelet.”
