Chapter 7: What Diane Said
She came through the front door the way people do when a house is familiar — not knocking, calling out before she was fully inside.
"Dad, I brought that bread from the market you like—"
She stopped when she saw us.
Diane Calloway was tall like her father, with dark hair cut short and the kind of direct gaze that made you feel immediately assessed.
She looked at Eric.
Then at me.
Then at her father.
"You have company," she said carefully.
"Come sit down," Thomas said.
"There's something I need to tell you."
She set the bread on the kitchen counter without looking away from us.
She sat in the chair nearest the door, which I noticed but didn't comment on.
Thomas told her.
He was direct and unhurried about it.
He told her about Eric's mother, about the pregnancy, about the choice that had been made thirty-two years ago.
He told her about the DNA kit on the shelf.
Diane listened without interrupting.
When Thomas finished, the room was very quiet.
"How long have you known he existed?" Diane asked her father.
"Since before he was born."
"And you never told me."
"No."
Diane looked at Eric.
Her expression was unreadable in the way that expressions are when someone is working very hard to keep them that way.
"This isn't his fault," Thomas said.
"I know that." Her voice was even.
"I'm not angry at him." She looked back at her father.
"I'm angry at you."
"I know."
"You let me grow up thinking I was an only child."
"I wasn't certain—"
"You bought a DNA kit three days ago," Diane said.
"That means you were certain enough."
Thomas didn't answer that.
Diane stood up.
She walked to the window and stood with her back to the room for a moment.
Her shoulders were tight.
I watched Eric watching her, and I could see him trying to decide whether to speak.
He spoke.
"I didn't come here to take anything from you," he said.
"I want you to know that.
I found out four days ago.
I'm still trying to understand what any of this means."
Diane turned around.
"What do you want?" she asked.
Not unkindly.
Just directly.
"I don't know yet," Eric said.
"I wanted to see him.
I wanted to know if he was real." He paused.
"I wanted to know if he'd spent thirty-two years not thinking about me, because that would have been easier to deal with than the alternative."
"And?"
"And apparently he bought a DNA kit the same week the bank called." Eric looked at Thomas briefly.
"So."
Diane was quiet for a moment.
Something in her posture shifted — not softening, exactly, but releasing some of its held tension.
"I need some time," she said.
"With this."
"Of course," Eric said.
"I'm not saying no to — whatever this is.
I'm saying I need time."
"That's fair."
She looked at me for the first time since sitting down.
"You're his sister?
His — Robert's daughter?"
"Yes.
Sarah."
"You drove out here with him."
"I did."
She seemed to consider that.
"That was good of you."
She picked up her bag from the floor beside the chair.
She looked at her father once more — a long look, complicated and layered, the kind that takes years to build.
"I'll call you tonight," she said to Thomas.
He nodded.
She left.
The door closed quietly behind her.
The three of us sat in the aftermath of that for a moment.
"She'll come around," Thomas said.
"You don't have to reassure me," Eric said.
"I'm not reassuring you.
I know my daughter." Thomas leaned back in his chair.
"She's angry because she loves me and I kept something from her.
That's not the same as being closed off to the idea of you." He paused.
"Give her a week."
Eric nodded slowly.
We stayed for another hour.
Thomas showed Eric a photograph of himself at thirty — standing at a job site somewhere, hard hat in hand, grinning at the camera.
Eric held it for a long time without saying anything.
Then he handed it back.
"My dad kept a photograph too," Eric said.
"Of himself at about the same age.
Standing with your — with my mother.
He hid it in a suit for thirty-two years."
Thomas was quiet for a moment.
"He loved her," Thomas said.
"I know that's strange to hear from me.
But I always knew it.
She chose well."
Eric folded his hands together.
"He loved her.
And he loved me." He said it simply, like a fact being confirmed aloud.
"Whatever else is true, that part is true."
"Yes," Thomas said.
"It is."
We left shortly after.
Thomas walked us to the door.
He shook my hand, and then he looked at Eric for a moment before pulling him into a brief, careful embrace — the kind between two people who don't yet know how much they're allowed to mean to each other.
Eric didn't pull away.
On the drive back to the airport, Eric was quiet for a long time.
I didn't push.
Somewhere on the highway, he said: "The DNA results are going to say what we already know."
"Yes."
"And then what?"
"And then you decide what you want." I glanced at him.
"There's no deadline.
Nobody's waiting for you to have this figured out."
He looked out the window.
"She said I look exactly like my mother," he said quietly.
"Calloway.
The first thing he said."
"I know."
"I never thought I looked like anyone in our family.
I always assumed it was just — genetics being unpredictable."
"Eric."
"I know.
I know." He pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose.
"I'm not falling apart.
I'm just — processing."
"You're allowed to."
He didn't say anything else for a while.
But before we reached the airport, he took out his phone and sent a text.
May you like
I didn't ask who it was to.
Three days later, he told me Diane had replied.
