Chapter 7
I stared at the photograph until my eyes hurt.
Emily took the phone back.
“You knew him.”
“No.”
“You’re in the picture.”
“I can see that.”
“Dad.”
“I don’t remember this.”
She zoomed in.
There I was.
Twenty-seven years old.
Longer hair.
A work shirt with the logo of the electrical contractor I worked for back then.
I was holding a paper plate.
Standing maybe fifteen feet behind Sarah.
Behind Michael.
Behind Daniel Cole.
“This had to be before I met your mother.”
Sarah appeared on the stairs.
“What’s going on?”
Emily held up the phone.
“Do you recognize this?”
Sarah came closer.
Then stopped.
“Oh my God.”
“You know where it was taken?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Michael’s company picnic.”
I looked at her.
“Why was I there?”
Sarah studied the picture.
“I don’t know.”
Then I remembered.
Not the people.
The place.
“Lakeside Park.”
Sarah looked at me.
“Yes.”
I sat back.
“My company subcontracted electrical work for a warehouse project.”
Michael’s construction company.
We had been invited to their end-of-summer picnic after finishing ahead of schedule.
I remembered free burgers.
A softball game.
A drunk superintendent falling into a kiddie pool.
I didn’t remember Sarah.
Or Michael.
Or Daniel.
But apparently we had all existed in the same frame years before our lives collided.
Emily looked unsettled.
“Michael says you know more.”
“He’s manipulating you.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I didn’t know your mother then.”
Sarah nodded.
“That picture was taken before I ever met David.”
Emily looked at her.
“Do I believe you?”
Sarah’s face crumpled slightly.
“You have every reason not to.”
That answer softened Emily more than denial would have.
“Why would Michael send it?”
“To create doubt,” I said.
Emily frowned.
“But why?”
That question stayed with us until morning.
At nine thirty, Emily announced she was meeting Michael.
“Not alone.”
“He told me to.”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t.”
“He might not talk if you’re there.”
“Then I won’t go inside.”
She looked at me.
“You’d do that?”
“Yes.”
“Just sit outside?”
“Yes.”
“Dad.”
“What?”
“I’m still mad at you too.”
“For what?”
She held up the photograph.
“Because even if you honestly forgot, part of me doesn’t trust anything right now.”
That hurt.
But I understood.
“Fair.”
She looked surprised.
“No speech?”
“No.”
“No telling me I should know you better after twenty years?”
“I think you should.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“But trust gets damaged by rooms, not just people.”
“What does that mean?”
“If everyone around you lies long enough, eventually you stop trusting the furniture.”
She almost smiled.
“Come on.”
We drove together.
Michael had chosen a diner.
I parked across the street.
Emily squeezed the door handle.
“You’re really staying?”
“Yes.”
“If I text you…”
“I’ll be there.”
She nodded and crossed the street.
I watched her enter.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
I hated every second.
At twenty-seven minutes, my phone buzzed.
Not Emily.
Angela.
“We verified the cancer.”
My stomach tightened.
“He’s telling the truth?”
“Mostly.”
“What does mostly mean?”
“He has metastatic pancreatic cancer.”
I closed my eyes.
“How long?”
“Impossible to say. Months is plausible.”
“So that part is real.”
“Yes.”
“And everything else?”
“I found something.”
“What?”
“Michael filed for bankruptcy seven months ago.”
I opened my eyes.
“What?”
“He has substantial debt.”
“How much?”
“Over six hundred thousand.”
That explained the hotel questions.
The assets.
The trust.
“He’s broke.”
“Essentially.”
“Then what inheritance was he promising Emily?”
“I found no obvious inheritance.”
I stared at the diner entrance.
“So he lied.”
“Seems likely.”
“Why name her in a trust with nothing in it?”
“That’s what I’m trying to determine.”
My phone buzzed again.
Emily.
Come inside.
I ended the call and crossed the street.
Emily sat in a booth.
Michael sat across from her.
He looked worse than two days earlier.
Pale.
Sweating.
But alert.
A sealed envelope lay on the table.
Emily’s face was unreadable.
“What happened?”
She pointed to the seat beside her.
“Sit.”
I did.
Michael looked annoyed.
“I told you to come alone.”
“She did.”
I looked at the envelope.
“What is that?”
Emily answered.
“DNA results.”
My heart stopped.
“Whose?”
“Mine and Michael’s.”
I looked at him.
“When did you test?”
“Two weeks ago,” Emily said.
“And?”
She pushed the paper toward me.
I read the result.
Probability of paternity: 0%.
Michael Reynolds was not Emily’s biological father.
I looked at him.
He looked back without emotion.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“For two weeks?”
“Yes.”
“You still had her sign a declaration calling you her sole legal father?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because I raised her first.”
I almost stood.
“You were there for four years.”
“They mattered.”
“So did the next twenty.”
“I didn’t say they didn’t.”
“Then why are you trying to erase me?”
Michael leaned toward me.
“Because Sarah erased me first.”
Emily slammed her palm onto the table.
“Stop.”
We both looked at her.
“I am not a weapon.”
Michael looked away.
“I am not revenge,” she continued. “I am not something Mom stole from you. I am not something Dad stole from you.”
Michael’s eyes filled slightly.
Emily pointed at the DNA results.
“And apparently I’m not even your biological daughter.”
“You were my daughter.”
“Were?”
Michael flinched.
She noticed.
“So that’s it?”
“No.”
“You spent four years with me and twenty years angry about losing me, but the second DNA says no, I become past tense?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s exactly what you said.”
Michael’s hands trembled.
“I loved you.”
“Then why did you stay away?”
He looked at me.
Not Emily.
Me.
That told me the answer would be ugly.
“Because I was ashamed.”
Emily frowned.
“Of what?”
“Of the money.”
“What money?”
“The money Sarah paid me.”
“You extorted Mom.”
“At first.”
“At first?”
He rubbed his face.
“I was angry. Drunk most days. Broke. I told myself I deserved something after what she did.”
“What did she do?”
“She lied about Daniel.”
Sarah had admitted that.
Michael continued.
“Then I took the money. And once I took it, every month made it harder to come back.”
“Why?”
“Because what would I say?”
Emily stared.
“How about ‘I’m sorry’?”
His eyes filled.
“I was a coward.”
The honesty shocked all of us.
Then I remembered Angela’s call.
“You’re bankrupt.”
Michael froze.
Emily turned to him.
“What?”
I watched his face.
“You owe over six hundred thousand dollars.”
Emily stared.
“You told me you had an inheritance.”
Michael didn’t answer.
“You lied?”
“I was going to explain.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
I leaned forward.
“What are the documents for?”
Michael looked at me.
“I need to protect something.”
“What?”
He stared at Emily.
“My father’s land.”
I frowned.
“Your father died years ago.”
“He owned property through a partnership. There’s litigation.”
“Convenient.”
“It’s real.”
“Then why ask about my company?”
His face hardened.
“Because some of the money Sarah gave you was mine.”
“Not legally.”
“That isn’t how I see it.”
“I don’t care how you see it.”
Emily interrupted.
“Stop talking like I’m not here.”
Michael nodded.
She looked at him.
“Why did you make me sign those papers?”
“I thought if I established you as my daughter before the estate issue was resolved, you might inherit.”
“But I’m not your biological daughter.”
“Biology isn’t everything.”
I almost laughed at the hypocrisy.
Emily heard it too.
Her face changed.
“That’s rich.”
Michael looked at me.
“I know how it sounds.”
“No,” Emily said. “I don’t think you do.”
She stood.
“Who is Daniel?”
Michael’s expression changed again.
“He’s probably your father.”
“Probably?”
“He and your mother were together.”
“I know.”
“Did you ever speak to him about me?”
Michael looked down.
“Yes.”
Emily froze.
“When?”
“Twenty-four years ago.”
“What did he say?”
Michael rubbed his thumb against the edge of the table.
“He said you couldn’t be his.”
“Why?”
“He said he was sterile.”
Emily stared.
“What?”
I felt a strange chill.
“Sterile?”
Michael nodded.
“He had some childhood illness. He said doctors told him he couldn’t have children.”
“But he has a son,” Emily said.
Michael looked at her.
“No, he doesn’t.”
Jason’s research flashed through my mind.
Daniel Cole.
One son.
Michael continued.
“The boy people think is his son is his stepson.”
Emily slowly sat back down.
“If Daniel couldn’t have children…”
Nobody finished the sentence.
Michael looked toward me.
Then at the old photograph on Emily’s phone.
And suddenly I understood why he had sent it.
Not because I knew Daniel.
Not because I had some secret relationship with Sarah.
Because he wanted to introduce another possibility.
I stood.
“No.”
Emily looked at me.
“Dad?”
Michael said nothing.
I pointed at him.
“Do not even start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
Emily stared between us.
“What?”
My stomach twisted.
She looked at me.
Then the photograph.
Then me again.
“No.”
Her voice was barely audible.
“Dad…”
“I did not know your mother.”
“I know.”
“I had never spoken to her.”
“I know.”
Michael finally said, “That doesn’t mean anything.”
I turned on him.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting nothing.”
“You sent the photograph.”
“I sent proof that your lives crossed before you remember them crossing.”
Emily looked ill.
“Why?”
Michael reached into his jacket.
He pulled out another envelope.
“I found this in my father’s old files.”
He slid it across the table.
Inside was a photograph from the same picnic.
This one showed me talking to Sarah.
Not standing behind her.
Talking to her.
Close.
Smiling.
Sarah’s hand was resting on my arm.
I stared at it.
May you like
I remembered nothing.
Then Michael said quietly, “Maybe you should take a DNA test too.”
