Chapter 9
When I filed for divorce?
She called me personally.
“I hope, for your sake, you understand the door you are closing.”
I thought it was a threat about money.
Perhaps it had been something else.
Declan looked toward the stairs.
“I want to meet them.”
“Not tonight.”
His face hardened.
“I lost four years.”
“So did they.”
“I didn’t choose that.”
“Neither did they.”
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, they were wet.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
I had known Declan Hawthorne for twelve years and had never seen him cry.
“I would have come,” he whispered.
My throat tightened.
“To the ultrasound?”
“Yes.”
“To the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“To birthdays?”
“Yes.”
I looked away.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, Declan.
You know how you feel now.
You don’t know who you would have been then.”
“I would have been their father.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You weren’t particularly good at being my husband.”
“That has nothing to do with them.”
“It has everything to do with them.”
His jaw tightened.
Then a tiny voice came from the stairs.
“Mommy?”
Harper stood halfway down, clutching her stuffed rabbit.
Declan froze.
She stared at him.
“Why is the airport man here?”
I went to her.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
She shook her head.
“Bad dream.”
I picked her up.
Declan watched as Harper put her head on my shoulder.
She noticed him again.
“Are you Mommy’s friend?”
Neither of us answered immediately.
Then Declan said softly:
“I hope I might be someday.”
Harper considered this.
“You look sad.”
His mouth trembled.
“I am a little.”
She held out her rabbit.
“You can hug Bun-Bun.”
Declan stared at the stuffed animal.
Then at me.
I nodded.
He stepped forward and carefully accepted it.
His hands shook.
That was the moment my anger became complicated.
Because monsters are easy.
Declan had never been easy.
And somewhere beneath five years of resentment, I suddenly had to consider the possibility that my daughters had not been abandoned.
Maybe they had been stolen.
The DNA results arrived three days later.
99.9998%.
Declan was their biological father.
He came to my house that evening.
This time, I let him meet them properly.
“Girls,” I said, sitting with them in the living room, “remember Mr.
Declan?”
Sophie nodded.
“The man with my eyes.”
Declan nearly choked.
“Yes.”
I took a breath.
“He’s your father.”