Chapter 2
For three seconds, nobody moved.
The only sound was the old ceiling fan clicking above us.
I looked at my mother.
Then at Ray.
Then at the unopened crib box leaning against the wall where my desk used to sit.
“Who is moving in?”
Mom rubbed both hands over her face.
“Camille, please don’t do this in the hallway.”
“Do what?”
“Turn this into something ugly.”
I actually laughed.
It came out sharp and broken.
“You painted over the last thing Dad and I made together, packed up everything I own, put a crib in my room, and somehow I’m the one making this ugly?”
Ray stepped forward.
“Denise, just tell her.”
Mom glared at him.
“You promised me you’d let me handle it.”
“And you promised me the room would be ready.”
There it was again.
The room.
Not my room.
Just a room they had apparently reassigned while I was away.
I pulled out my phone.
“Fine. If nobody wants to tell me, I’ll ask Aunt Sarah.”
Mom’s expression changed instantly.
“Don’t.”
That one word frightened me more than anything else.
I called Sarah.
She answered on the first ring.
“Camille?”
“I’m standing in my bedroom.”
Silence.
“My white bedroom.”
Another silence.
“Mom painted over Dad’s mural.”
“Oh, honey.”
“And there’s a crib.”
I watched my mother close her eyes.
“Who is the baby, Aunt Sarah?”
Sarah took a long breath.
“Your mother needs to tell you.”
“She’s standing right here.”
“Put me on speaker.”
I did.
My mother looked furious.
“Sarah, stay out of this.”
“No,” my aunt said. “I stayed out of it for two months because you said you were going to tell her yourself.”
Two months.
My heart began pounding.
“Tell me what?”
Mom sat on the edge of the empty bed frame.
There wasn’t even a mattress anymore.
That detail hit me strangely hard.
They hadn’t just redecorated.
They had erased me.
Ray leaned against the doorframe.
“Her name is Lily.”
I turned toward him.
“Whose name?”
“The baby.”
“Whose baby?”
He looked at Mom.
She wouldn’t look at me.
My mouth went dry.
“Mom?”
“She’s your sister.”
Everything inside me stopped.
I stared at her.
“That’s not possible.”
Mom’s lips trembled.
“She’s your half sister.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Camille—”
“No. Dad died seven years ago.”
“I know.”
“So who is her father?”
Ray looked uncomfortable.
Mom whispered, “Your father.”
For a moment, I honestly thought I had heard her wrong.
“My dead father?”
“Camille.”
“My father who died seven years ago has a baby?”
Ray pushed away from the doorway.
“That’s not what she means.”
“Then somebody better start speaking in full sentences.”
Mom stood again.
“Lily is your father’s daughter.”
My chest tightened.
“She’s not a newborn.”
Sarah spoke quietly through the phone.
“She’s six.”
I looked down at the crib.
Then back at Mom.
“Why is there a crib for a six-year-old?”
“It converts to a toddler bed,” Ray muttered.
I stared at him until he looked away.
Then I turned back to my mother.
“Dad had another child?”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“When?”
“Before he died.”
“With who?”
Mom didn’t answer.
Aunt Sarah did.
“Her mother’s name was Rebecca Hale.”
I knew that name.
Not well.
Just enough.
Rebecca had worked at Dad’s architecture firm.
She had come to our house twice for company dinners when I was little.
Tall.
Dark hair.
Soft voice.
I remembered her bringing me colored pencils once.
“No.”
I shook my head harder.
“No, Dad wouldn’t.”
Mom’s face crumpled.
“He did.”
I backed into the wall.
The fresh white paint touched my shoulder.
I jerked away from it like it had burned me.
“How long did you know?”
“That he had an affair?”
“Yes.”
“Since three months before he died.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed?”
“He was trying to fix things.”
“And the baby?”
“I didn’t know Rebecca was pregnant until after the funeral.”
I looked at Sarah’s name glowing on my phone screen.
“Did you know?”
“Yes,” Sarah said.
My throat closed.
Everyone knew.
Everyone except me.
I whispered, “Why?”
Mom stepped toward me.
“Because you were thirteen. You had just lost your father. You couldn’t sleep. You stopped eating. You kept sitting in his closet because his clothes still smelled like him. What was I supposed to do? Tell you he had betrayed us too?”
I flinched.
“I deserved the truth.”
“You deserved to survive.”
The anger in her voice broke into tears.
For one second, I saw the exhausted woman she had been after Dad died.
Then I remembered the white wall behind me.
“What does any of this have to do with my room?”
Ray answered this time.
“Rebecca died six weeks ago.”
I stared at him.
“How?”
“Car accident.”
“And Lily?”
“She doesn’t have anyone else.”
I looked at Mom.
“You’re taking in Dad’s daughter?”
Her chin trembled.
“I’m trying to.”
The shock was so huge I couldn’t even find anger at first.
“You’re raising the child Dad had with the woman he cheated on you with?”
“She is not responsible for what they did.”
“I know that.”
“Then don’t say it like she is.”
“I’m asking why nobody told me!”
“Because I didn’t know how!”
Her shout bounced through the empty room.
Ray said, “Denise.”
“No.” Mom wiped her cheeks. “She wants the truth? Fine.”
She looked straight at me.
“I hated Rebecca for years.”
I said nothing.
“I hated your father too. Then I hated myself because he died before I could decide whether I forgave him.”
Her voice shook.
“Then every birthday Lily had, Sarah would tell me. Every Christmas, I knew there was a little girl somewhere who had the same smile your father had.”
I looked at Sarah’s name on the phone.
“You kept track of her?”
Sarah answered carefully.
“Rebecca contacted me after your father died.”
“Why you?”
“Because she knew Denise didn’t want contact.”
Mom looked ashamed.
“I couldn’t.”
“So Aunt Sarah knew Lily this whole time?”
“Yes.”
A colder realization came.
“Have you met her?”
Sarah paused.
“Yes.”
I stared at my mother.
“Have you?”
She nodded.
“How long?”
“Three weeks.”
I laughed again, but tears were burning my eyes now.
“So everyone has been building this secret family while I’m at college.”
“That isn’t fair,” Mom said.
“Fair?”
I pointed at the wall.
“That mural was the last happy memory I had with Dad.”
Mom’s face twisted.
“And every time I looked at it, I remembered the man who destroyed our marriage.”
The room went silent.
There it was.
The real reason.
“You painted it because you hated him.”
“I painted it because I couldn’t put Lily in a room surrounded by a giant painting celebrating a father she never got to know.”
I felt sick.
“You could have covered it.”
“I know.”
“You could have called me.”
“I know.”
“You could have taken pictures.”
“I did.”
That stopped me.
Mom hurried out of the room.
She came back with a folder from the hall table.
Inside were printed photographs.
The mural.
Every section.
Every handprint.
Every little painted star.
And tucked behind them was something else.
A thin sheet of tracing paper.
My father’s handwriting.
For my girl, Camille. Always leave room for more color.
My knees almost gave out.
Mom whispered, “I couldn’t destroy it without saving something.”
I pressed the paper against my chest.
Then the doorbell rang.
Ray looked downstairs.
Mom froze.
“What?”
He checked his phone.
“They’re early.”
“Who?”
Neither answered fast enough.
I already knew.
I walked to the window.
A gray sedan had stopped at the curb.
A woman I didn’t recognize stepped out.
Then the back door opened.
A small girl climbed onto the sidewalk holding a worn purple backpack.
She had dark curls.
A red jacket.
And when she looked up at the house, my breath caught.
Because even from the second floor, I recognized those eyes.
My father’s eyes.
The exact gray-blue eyes I saw every morning when I looked in the mirror.
Mom came beside me.
Her voice was barely audible.
“That’s Lily.”
The little girl stared at our front door like she was afraid to move.
Then she reached inside her backpack and pulled out something folded.
A piece of pale blue paper.
I couldn’t see what was written on it.
But Aunt Sarah suddenly whispered through my phone.
“Oh no.”
I lifted the phone.
“What?”
Sarah sounded panicked.
“Camille, before you meet her, there’s one more thing Rebecca left behind.”
My stomach dropped.
“What thing?”
“A letter.”
“For Mom?”
“No.”
“For Lily?”
“No.”
May you like
Sarah hesitated.
“It’s for you.”
