Chapter 4 - THE DAUGHTER I NEVER KNEW EXISTED
Vanessa would not talk over the phone.
“Meet me somewhere public,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because Eric checks more than you realize.”
That sentence alone changed my plan.
I left the house through the back entrance and crossed to Evelyn’s.
She took one look at my face and locked the door behind me.
“What happened?”
“I need your car.”
She didn’t ask why.
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting inside a nearly empty café in Stamford.
Vanessa entered wearing a navy coat and carrying no purse.
She was around my age.
Maybe younger by a few years.
The first thing I noticed was that she looked terrified.
The second was that she knew exactly who I was.
“I’m sorry,” she said before sitting.
“For what?”
“For knowing about you.”
I folded my hands.
“Start at the beginning.”
Vanessa stared at the table.
“I dated Eric before you.”
“For how long?”
“Three years.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
She gave me the dates.
The relationship ended six months before Eric and I supposedly met.
“Why has he been sending you money?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because of Lily.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Who is Lily?”
Vanessa looked directly at me.
“Our daughter.”
For several seconds, the café disappeared.
Eric had a daughter.
A daughter he had never mentioned in ten years.
“How old?”
“Fourteen.”
I did the math.
Lily had been four when I married Eric.
“You let him hide her?”
Vanessa flinched.
“No.”
“Then explain.”
“He told me his mother would destroy me in court if I pushed for contact. Eric paid support privately. He visited Lily occasionally until about five years ago.”
“Why did that stop?”
Vanessa’s jaw tightened.
“Because Eleanor told him Clara would leave if she discovered the truth.”
I almost laughed.
Eleanor had never met me when Lily was born.
Yet somehow I had become the excuse.
“Does Lily know about me?”
Vanessa nodded.
“She knows her father married someone else.”
I swallowed.
“Does she know who I am?”
“She found you online.”
That hurt in a way I hadn’t expected.
Somewhere, a teenage girl had searched my name while I was unknowingly married to her father.
I asked the question I dreaded.
“Why did Richard say something about whose daughter she really is?”
Vanessa’s expression changed.
“That’s not about Lily.”
My skin prickled.
“Then who?”
She leaned closer.
“Eric’s family thinks there’s another child.”
“What child?”
Vanessa whispered:
“Sarah’s.”
I frowned.
“What does Sarah’s daughter have to do with Eric?”
Vanessa looked toward the window.
“Because nine years ago, Eric told me Sarah’s oldest daughter might actually be his.”
I stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought so too.”
Then she took an envelope from inside her coat.
“I kept this because someday I knew someone would need it.”
Inside was an old DNA laboratory invoice.
The client name had been blacked out.
But the test date was nine years earlier.
May you like
And written by hand across the bottom were three words:
ERIC - NOT EXCLUDED.
