Chapter 2 - THE CHILD I HAD ALREADY BURIED
I did not chase Marcus.
That was instinct.
Old instinct would have.
Demand answers.
Control exits.
Force the room to stay inside my understanding.
Instead, I let him leave.
Then I cleared the ballroom.
Everybody.
The judge protested politely.
The priest did not.
Within six minutes, only Emily, Lily, and I remained.
Emily kept herself between us.
I noticed.
“Is she mine?”
No opening speech.
No threat.
The question was already large enough.
Emily closed her eyes.
“Damon.”
“Yes or no?”
Lily looked up at her mother.
Emily lowered her voice.
“Not in front of her.”
That was not a no.
I felt something violent move through me.
I kept both hands against the back of a chair.
“Upstairs.”
Emily shook her head.
“We’re leaving.”
“No.”
Her fear became anger.
“You do not get to tell me where my daughter goes.”
My daughter.
Not ours.
Important.
I stepped back.
“You’re right.”
That surprised her.
It surprised me too.
“Take her upstairs. Mrs. Walsh can stay with her.”
Emily hesitated.
Then agreed.
When she returned, I was standing beside the cake.
Still no candles.
“She was born three years and eight months ago,” Emily said.
The room became smaller.
Her pregnancy had supposedly ended four years earlier.
“When?”
She gave me the date.
I already knew.
Three weeks after the night she called and told me our child had died.
My hand tightened.
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
One word.
No excuse.
“Was she mine?”
Emily looked directly at me.
“Yes.”
There are truths people imagine will produce immediate emotion.
They do not.
Sometimes the mind becomes procedural.
Blood type.
Dates.
Hospital.
Birth certificate.
Medical history.
Who held her first?
Who named her?
Who knew?
“DNA test.”
Emily nodded.
“You should.”
“You thought I would argue?”
“I don't know what you are anymore.”
Fair.
Then I asked:
“The coin.”
Her face changed again.
“It isn't mine.”
“Whose?”
“I was told not to answer that question.”
“By whom?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
My anger rose.
She held her ground.
“That anger is exactly why I waited.”
“Waited?”
“To bring Lily here.”
That stopped me.
“You brought her intentionally.”
“Yes.”
“With that coin.”
Silence.
“Yes.”
So the birthday was not an accident.
The white flower.
The necklace visible.
Emily’s position near the corridor.
Someone had planned for me to see it.
“Why tonight?”
Her answer came quietly.
“Because someone told me Marcus Bell would be sitting close enough for you to watch his face.”
I looked toward the empty chair Marcus had occupied.
Then back at Emily.
“Who told you?”
May you like
She swallowed.
“A man you think has been dead for twenty years.”
