Chapter 6: The Thing Diana Carried
Maya was in her room, sitting cross-legged on her bed with her rabbit, carefully drawing something in her sketchbook.
She looked up when I appeared in the doorway.
Her face was still puffy from crying earlier, but her eyes were calm now.
"Hi, Daddy."
"Hi, bug." I sat on the edge of her bed.
"What are you drawing?"
She turned the sketchbook toward me.
A house.
Two figures.
A sun.
My throat closed.
"That's us," she said.
"You and me.
I always draw us the same."
"I know you do." I smoothed her hair back from her forehead.
"I love you.
You know that?"
"I know." She leaned her head against my arm.
"Is Diana in trouble?"
"I don't know yet."
"She's not always mean," Maya said quietly.
"Sometimes she's nice.
She just gets scared and then she gets mean.
Grandma does that too sometimes."
I looked at my daughter — her small serious face, the way she had already, at eight years old, learned to read the emotional weather of the adults around her and navigate it carefully.
That was not something a child should have to learn that young.
I kissed the top of her head.
"Stay up here for a little while longer, okay?"
She nodded and went back to her drawing.
I went back downstairs.
Diana was still at the table.
She hadn't moved.
"Tell me exactly what Carla said," I said.
"Every word you remember."
Diana set down her cup.
"She came to the office where I was working.
She waited outside.
When I came out she said — she said, 'You should know that the little girl he's so proud of isn't even his.
So whatever you think you're getting from this family, you're building it on a lie.'"
"And then?"
"And then she left.
She didn't give me any evidence.
She didn't explain anything.
She just said it and walked away." Diana's jaw tightened.
"I think she wanted to destroy something.
I don't know if she even believed it herself."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because what would I have said?" Her voice cracked, just slightly.
"William, we had been together for four months.
'Hello, your ex-wife told me your daughter might not be yours' — what does that do to a person?
What does it do to a child if it turns out to be nothing and you've already started to look at her differently?"
I sat down.
"So you married me," I said.
"Knowing this."
"I married you believing it was most likely a lie told by a bitter woman on her way out of your life.
I married you because I love you.
And because I love Maya." She pressed her hands flat on the table.
"But I have not slept a full night in three years."
The silence between us was heavy and specific.
"We can do a test," I said finally.
"I know."
"If she's mine — and I believe she is — then this ends here."
"And if she isn't?"
I looked at Diana steadily.
"She's still my daughter.
She has been since the day she was born.
Nothing changes that." I paused.
"But I would need to know the truth.
Maya deserves to know the truth.
Whatever it is."
Diana's eyes filled.
She didn't let the tears fall.
"I should have told you," she said.
"I know that.
I told myself I was protecting you both.
But I think I was also protecting myself.
From losing you."
"You should have told me."
"Yes."
The word landed between us without defense.
Just the weight of it.
My phone buzzed on the table.
A message from a number I didn't recognize.
*William.
This is Carla.
I heard you're back early.
We need to talk.
There are things about Diana you don't know.
Things she's been hiding from you since before the wedding.
Call me.*
I turned the phone so Diana could read it.
Her face went very still.
"She's not done," Diana said quietly.
May you like
"No," I said.
"She isn't."
