Chapter 4: Two Tessas
I sat down on the edge of the bed because my legs made the decision before I did.
Marcus stayed near the door.
He didn't come closer.
He didn't leave.
"Start talking," I said.
"It's complicated."
"I have the photograph in my hand.
Uncomplicate it."
He exhaled slowly and sat down in the chair by the window — the chair that had always been his reading chair, the one I had picked out for him as a birthday gift three years ago.
He looked wrong sitting in it right now.
"Diane Harwell," he said.
"We were together before I met you.
A long time before."
"How long before?"
"We ended things about a year before our first date."
"And the girl in this photograph?"
He looked at the floor.
"Her name is also Tessa.
Tessa Harwell.
She's Diane's daughter."
"Your daughter."
He didn't deny it.
"So the Tessa I have been living with for five years—"
"Is my daughter from my first marriage.
You knew that."
"I knew she was your daughter from your first marriage.
I did not know there was a second daughter with the same name." I set the photograph down on the bed between us.
"Why does she have the same name?"
He rubbed his face with both hands.
"Diane named her Tessa before she knew I had another daughter with that name.
By the time I found out Diane was pregnant, my first marriage was already over and my daughter — the Tessa you know — was four years old." He paused.
"I didn't tell Diane to change the name.
I thought it wouldn't matter because they were never going to meet."
"Were never going to meet," I repeated.
"Past tense."
He looked up.
"They've met," I said.
It wasn't a question.
He nodded once.
"When?"
"About fourteen months ago.
Diane reached out.
Said Tessa — her Tessa — had been asking about her father.
She was seventeen by then.
Old enough to want answers."
Fourteen months ago.
I ran the number back in my head.
Fourteen months ago, the Tessa I knew had started becoming colder toward me.
More hostile.
More deliberate in the small cruelties she aimed in my direction.
"Does the Tessa I know — does she know about her half-sister?"
"Yes."
"And she's known for fourteen months."
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
He said nothing.
I stood up.
"The loans, Marcus.
The property in D.
Harwell's name.
The account I've never seen." I picked up the bank statement from the folder.
"You've been supporting a second family."
"It's not a second family—"
"You have a daughter with another woman.
You have been paying for a house in her name.
You have a bank account I was never told about." I set the statement back down carefully, because I did not trust what I would do if I held it any longer.
"What would you call it?"
"A responsibility I was trying to manage without—"
"Without me knowing."
"Without making things harder than they already were."
"You put my name on loans I never signed, Marcus." My voice went very quiet.
"That is not managing a responsibility.
That is using me to pay for it."
He opened his mouth.
"Don't," I said.
"Don't tell me you were going to explain it eventually.
Don't tell me you were waiting for the right time.
You had eight months after I found the first folder.
You had five years before that." I looked at him.
"You were never going to tell me."
He didn't argue.
And that was worse than anything he could have said.
My phone lit up on the nightstand.
I glanced at the screen.
It was a number I didn't recognize.
A local area code.
I answered it without thinking.
"Is this Claire?" A woman's voice.
Careful.
Measured.
"Yes."
May you like
"My name is Diane Harwell." A pause.
"I think it's time we talked."
