Chapter 1 - THE SECOND FAMILY MY DAUGHTER DISCOVERED
Daniel stared at Emma as though he had forgotten she was capable of speaking.
“What exactly did you see?”
My daughter put down her fork.
“Don't do that, Dad.”
“I'm asking a question.”
“And I'm telling you not to make me feel like I imagined what happened.”
I looked at Emma.
She was twenty-one, finishing her final year at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. She had always been close to her father, and watching her struggle to meet his eyes hurt almost as much as discovering his affair.
Daniel leaned back.
“Rachel and I have been working together on a complicated project. You've misunderstood the situation.”
Emma's face changed.
“Did the project require you to kiss her outside a restaurant?”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Daniel looked at me.
“Claire, can we discuss this privately?”
“No.”
His expression hardened.
“This is between us.”
“Then you shouldn't have made our daughter part of it.”
Emma reached for my hand beneath the table.
Four days earlier, when she called me from Easton, she had told me enough to confirm what I had suspected for months. But she had been too upset to explain everything.
Now, looking at Daniel, I realized there was more.
“Tell me the truth,” I said.
He ran a hand through his hair.
“Rachel and I became close. It wasn't planned.”
I almost laughed.
Twenty-three years of marriage, and his first explanation was that the affair had somehow happened without anyone making a decision.
“How long?”
“Claire—”
“How long?”
He stared at the table.
“A little over a year.”
Emma made a strange sound.
Not quite a laugh.
Not quite a sob.
“That's not true.”
Daniel's head snapped up.
“Emma.”
She pulled out her phone.
“I saw you outside that restaurant with Rachel. You were holding her hand, and you kissed her before she went inside.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
Then Emma turned the screen toward me.
The photograph showed Daniel standing beside Rachel in front of a small brick restaurant. Rachel was smiling, and Daniel had one arm around her waist.
But that wasn't what made my breath stop.
Between them stood a little boy.
Dark hair.
Blue jacket.
One small hand wrapped around Daniel's fingers.
He looked about four years old.
I stared at the photograph.
“Who is that?”
Daniel said nothing.
Emma's eyes filled.
“When Rachel went inside, the little boy asked Dad to pick him up.”
She swallowed.
“And then he called him Daddy.”
I felt something inside me go completely still.
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Claire, I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
He didn't answer.
“When our daughter graduated? When we retired? When you decided which family deserved Christmas?”
“Please don't do this.”
I stood so abruptly that my chair scraped against the floor.
“What's his name?”
Daniel looked defeated.
“Oliver.”
“How old?”
“Four.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Four years.
Not one.
Not a mistake that began during the past few months.
My husband had another child, and he had allowed me to spend years believing our marriage was simply going through a difficult period.
Emma stood beside me.
“Mom, I'm sorry.”
I turned toward her immediately.
“No, sweetheart.”
I pulled her into my arms.
“You have absolutely nothing to apologize for.”
Daniel watched us.
For the first time that morning, he looked frightened.
Then his phone vibrated on the counter.
Rachel's name appeared.
Beneath it was a message preview.
Oliver keeps asking when you're coming home. You promised him we'd all be together after this weekend.
I looked at Daniel.
He had spent the night with Rachel.
He had returned to our house in the same clothes.
And apparently, he had already promised another family that he was coming home to them.
May you like
But the next message revealed something even worse.
Did Claire sign the property papers yet? We can't wait much longer.
