Chapter 2 - The Name Harold Recognized
Ethan refused to let the conversation disappear behind one of his father’s silences.
“What does Mom mean?”
Harold moved toward the window.
Diane stayed near the fireplace, one hand gripping the back of a chair.
Claire looked between them.
“You both know something.”
“No,” Diane said quickly. “He knows something.”
Harold closed his eyes.
Ethan held up the report.
“This test says I’m Olivia’s biological father. So Mom’s accusation was garbage.”
Diane looked away.
“It also says you and I don’t have a father-son match.”
Harold still said nothing.
“And somehow Olivia has a close biological connection to you that didn’t come through me.”
Claire shifted Olivia higher against her shoulder.
There were not many ways to interpret that.
Ethan turned toward his wife.
“Claire…”
“Don’t.”
Her voice cracked.
“Don’t look at me like I knew.”
“I’m not.”
But Diane was.
She stared at Claire’s auburn hair, her narrow jaw and green eyes as if she were seeing them for the first time.
Then she asked a question that made Harold turn around immediately.
“What was your mother’s maiden name?”
Claire frowned.
“You know my mother’s name.”
“Before she married your father.”
“Shaw.”
Diane’s expression changed.
Harold whispered, “Diane.”
Claire heard it.
“What?”
Diane ignored him.
“Her first name was Rebecca?”
Claire took one step backward.
“Yes.”
Harold’s shoulders sagged.
Ethan looked at his father.
“You knew her.”
Harold rubbed a hand across his mouth.
Claire suddenly remembered something she had dismissed years earlier.
At her wedding, Harold had stared at a framed photograph of Claire’s mother for nearly a full minute.
Rebecca had died three years before the ceremony.
When Claire asked whether he had known her, Harold said she simply looked familiar.
Now Claire asked again.
“You knew my mother?”
Harold’s answer came slowly.
“Yes.”
Diane turned toward him.
“How well?”
Harold did not respond.
Diane laughed once, without humor.
“You always said Chicago was a big city.”
“Diane.”
“You said there were hundreds of Rebeccas.”
Ethan lowered the report.
“You’ve had this conversation before?”
Neither parent answered.
Claire felt Olivia stir against her.
She suddenly wanted to leave.
Instead she asked Harold the question that terrified her most.
“Did my mother know you?”
Harold looked directly at her.
“Yes.”
“How?”
May you like
His eyes dropped to the baby.
And Claire understood that whatever Harold was afraid to say had begun decades before she met Ethan.
