Chapter 7 - THE FATHER THEY SHARED
Daniel did not speak for nearly a minute.
Evelyn held the phone between them on speaker.
Richard’s voice crackled through the kitchen.
“I need you both to understand that I didn’t know.”
Daniel finally said, “Say it again.”
“Thomas Mercer was listed as Vanessa’s biological father.”
Daniel stared at the floor.
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I have the certified record.”
“My father was married to my mother.”
Richard laughed bitterly.
“So was I.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
Evelyn touched his hand.
He pulled away.
Not from her.
From everything.
Richard continued.
“Celeste told me Vanessa’s father had abandoned them.”
“She knew who he was?”
“Apparently.”
Daniel stood.
“Where are you?”
“Lake Forest.”
“We’re coming.”
Evelyn ended the call.
Daniel walked to the windows overlooking the backyard.
Snow remained in shaded patches beneath the trees.
“My mother worshipped him.”
Evelyn said nothing.
“He spent half my childhood lecturing me about loyalty.”
Still nothing.
Daniel turned.
“How old is Vanessa?”
“Thirty-six.”
He calculated.
“So Dad was forty-two.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Celeste?”
“Twenty-six.”
Daniel laughed without humor.
“Of course.”
They drove to Richard’s house.
Vanessa’s childhood home.
Evelyn’s childhood home too, though it had never felt like hers.
Richard waited in the library.
No Celeste.
No Vanessa.
A certified Illinois birth record lay on the desk.
Daniel read it.
Father: Thomas Edward Mercer.
The signature appeared beneath an acknowledgment dated thirty years earlier.
He knew it.
Evelyn could tell.
“That’s his signature?”
“Yes.”
Richard poured bourbon.
It was barely noon.
“I discovered the record in a locked file box Celeste kept in the basement safe.”
“You knew she had a safe?” Evelyn asked.
“I knew she kept jewelry and estate documents.”
“What else was inside?”
“Old correspondence.”
Daniel looked up.
“From my father?”
Richard nodded.
A stack of letters sat inside another folder.
Daniel did not touch them.
Evelyn did.
Most were from the mid-1990s.
Thomas wrote to Celeste about money.
About seeing Vanessa.
About keeping the relationship quiet because he feared losing his family and company.
One letter was different.
Richard,
You don’t know me well enough to trust me, but you know enough to understand what happens if this becomes public.
Celeste says you intend to marry her.
If you do, Vanessa will need stability.
I will establish funds privately.
I am asking you not to expose her parentage.
She is a child.
Do whatever you want with my name, but leave hers out of it.
Thomas
Evelyn looked at Richard.
“You agreed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He took a long drink.
“I loved Celeste.”
“And Vanessa?”
Richard looked away.
“She was five.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Yes. I loved her.”
The words were simple.
Evelyn felt them in a place she did not want to examine.
“You loved her enough to lie.”
“I thought I was protecting her.”
“And me?”
Richard lowered the glass.
“I failed you.”
Evelyn almost laughed.
Past tense again.
As though failure had happened once.
“You let everyone believe Mom was bitter and unstable.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe she contributed nothing.”
“Yes.”
“You let Vanessa call me illegitimate in this house.”
Richard’s face tightened.
“I never called you that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Daniel spoke without looking at him.
“Why did Thomas acknowledge paternity after you married Celeste?”
Richard shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s the original acknowledgment?”
“With the state, presumably.”
“What made him file it?”
“I said I don’t know.”
Evelyn opened another letter.
Thomas’s handwriting.
Celeste,
The trust is funded. Do not ask me for more.
You told me Richard would raise Vanessa as his own. I accepted that because I thought it was best for her.
Do not threaten Margaret again.
She knows enough already.
Evelyn froze.
“Dad.”
Richard looked up.
She handed him the letter.
He read the final sentence.
His face changed.
“What does that mean?”
“You tell me.”
“I’ve never seen this.”
Daniel took the page.
“What did Margaret know?”
Richard shook his head.
“She suspected the affair.”
“With Thomas?”
“I thought she suspected Celeste and me.”
Evelyn stared.
“You were having an affair with Celeste too?”
Richard looked sick.
“Yes.”
Daniel laughed once.
“This is unbelievable.”
“No,” Evelyn said softly.
“It’s worse.”
She looked at the timeline.
Celeste had been involved with Thomas Mercer.
Then Richard.
Possibly overlapping.
Margaret knew.
Thomas told Celeste not to threaten Margaret again.
“What threat?”
Richard sank into the leather chair.
“I don’t know.”
Evelyn began opening letters faster.
Most were personal.
Then she found a typed memo from a private attorney.
RE: VANESSA ROWAN / PATERNITY AND BENEFICIAL INTERESTS.
“Rowan?”
Daniel noticed too.
“Why does Vanessa have your mother’s maiden name?”
Evelyn’s fingers went cold.
Richard stood.
“What?”
The document was unsigned.
It referred to an anticipated dispute over “ownership rights arising through Margaret Rowan’s original investment and the proposed transfer of custodial interests to minor beneficiary Vanessa Rowan.”
Evelyn read the sentence again.
“Minor beneficiary Vanessa Rowan.”
Daniel frowned.
“Why would Vanessa be a beneficiary of Margaret’s investment?”
Richard reached for the memo.
“I don’t know.”
Evelyn pulled it away.
“Stop saying that.”
“I genuinely don’t.”
Daniel took the remaining letters.
One envelope had never been opened.
It was addressed to Richard.
Postmarked two weeks after Margaret’s death.
Richard stared at it.
“I never saw this.”
The seal remained intact.
Evelyn handed it to him.
He opened it.
Inside was one page from Thomas Mercer.
Richard,
Margaret is gone, so I am done protecting the arrangement she demanded.
Vanessa is entitled to nothing from Vale Hospitality.
Evelyn is.
If Celeste tells you otherwise, ask why Margaret paid for Vanessa’s first five years herself.
Richard read the line aloud twice.
Nobody understood it.
Then Evelyn remembered Diane.
“She said Mom knew Vanessa before Dad did.”
Daniel looked at her.
Evelyn took out her phone.
Diane answered on the third ring.
“Evelyn?”
“I need to ask you something.”
“All right.”
“Did my mother know Vanessa as a baby?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Richard gripped the desk.
“How?”
Diane spoke carefully.
“Margaret helped Celeste when Vanessa was born.”
“Why?”
Another pause.
“Because Celeste was her younger half-sister.”
The room went silent.
Evelyn stared at Richard.
May you like
Her voice barely worked.
“Celeste is my mother’s sister?”
