Chapter 3: What Rebecca Never Said Out Loud
Sophie's hand was still in mine when Rebecca finally spoke.
"Can you give us a minute, sweetheart?"
Sophie looked at me first — checking, making sure — before she nodded and pulled the blanket up to her chin.
I squeezed her hand once and stood.
Rebecca was already at the bottom of the stairs.
I followed her into the kitchen.
She stood at the counter with her back to me, both hands flat on the surface, not moving.
"Rebecca."
"I know."
"Look at me."
She turned around.
Her eyes were red but her jaw was set, and I recognized that expression — the one she used to wear when she'd already decided something and was bracing for the fight.
"Is she mine?"
Rebecca closed her eyes.
"Yes."
One word.
Twelve years.
I pulled out a chair and sat down because my legs weren't going to hold me.
"Why?
Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you had a full scholarship to Northwestern." She said it fast, like she'd rehearsed it.
"Because you had plans.
Because I found out two weeks after graduation and I couldn't — I couldn't be the reason you gave all of that up."
"That wasn't your decision to make."
"I know that now."
"You knew it then too."
She didn't answer.
That was its own kind of answer.
I looked around the kitchen.
Small.
Worn.
A child's drawing held to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a sunflower.
Sophie had drawn a house, a woman, and next to them — a man with dark hair and a wide smile.
Underneath, in careful twelve-year-old handwriting: *My family*.
My throat tightened.
"How long has she known?
About me?"
Rebecca hesitated.
"She found the photograph about four months ago.
In a box in my closet.
She asked me who you were and I told her you were an old friend." She paused.
"She didn't believe me."
"Smart girl."
"She is." Rebecca's voice broke on those two words.
"She really is."
I stood up and walked to the refrigerator.
I looked at the drawing for a long time.
"She's sick, Rebecca.
She is seriously ill and she spent her wish — her one wish — asking me to stay.
Do you understand what that means?
She didn't ask for a trip.
She didn't ask for a party.
She asked for a father."
Rebecca pressed her hand over her mouth.
"I'm not saying this to hurt you," I said.
"I'm saying it because we don't have the luxury of time.
Whatever you were protecting me from twelve years ago — it doesn't matter now.
What matters is that little girl upstairs."
"I know." It came out barely above a whisper.
"I want a paternity test.
Not because I doubt Sophie.
I want it so that I can do this properly.
Legally.
So she has every protection I can give her."
Rebecca nodded.
"And I want to be here.
Whatever that looks like.
Whatever time there is."
"Daniel—"
"I'm not asking your permission."
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then something in her face shifted — not relief exactly, but the particular exhaustion of someone who has been holding something alone for a very long time and has finally, carefully, set it down.
"There's something else," she said quietly.
I waited.
"Sophie's doctor called yesterday.
There's a new treatment.
A clinical trial in Boston." She folded her arms across her chest.
"The cost isn't covered.
It's forty thousand dollars for the first phase alone."
The number landed in the room like a stone.
"I've been trying to find a way to tell her it isn't possible," Rebecca said.
"She doesn't know yet."
I looked back at the drawing on the refrigerator.
The man with the wide smile.
*My family.*
"Don't tell her," I said.
Rebecca looked up.
"Don't tell her it isn't possible.
Not yet." I picked up my jacket from the back of the chair.
"I need to make some calls."
I was almost to the door when Rebecca said my name.
I stopped but didn't turn around.
"I'm sorry, Daniel.
I have been sorry every single day."
I stood there for a moment.
Then I walked out.
I sat in my car in the dark for a long time before I started the engine.
On the passenger seat, my phone lit up.
A text from an unknown number.
May you like
*Stay away from Rebecca and the girl.
You don't know what you're getting into.*
