style="font-size:15px;"> “Why can’t we meet him tonight?”
“For one thing, it may be too late. For another, you and I need a little time to talk about this and what it’s going to mean.”
“What do we have to talk about?”
“I’m sure he’s married and has a family. Finding out he has a daughter will change his life as much as it’ll change yours.”
“Do you think he won’t love me as much as he loves his other kids?”
“Of course he will. But that’s not the point, honey. Meeting you is going to transform his world. And your existence will come as a huge surprise to his wife and children, not to mention his parents and his brother’s family.”
“But he’s my father, too!”
“Of course. The fact that he’s made the decision to see us as soon as possible means he does care. That sounds like the Tris I once knew, and it’s obvious to me he hasn’t changed in that regard even if that portion of his life is a blank. But we have to discuss how this is going to impact all of us.”
“You’re talking about visitation. I mean, if he wants to go on seeing me.”
“Yes.”
“You think he won’t?”
The tremor in her voice made Rachel want to reach over and crush her daughter to her, but she couldn’t do that until they arrived at the house.
“Honey? Right now he doesn’t know positively we had a baby together. That’s why he’s coming. To find out.
“I’m sure a lot of possibilities are going through his head. Before we make any assumptions, we have to wait until you two have met and we’ve talked this through.
“Don’t forget you and your father live on two different continents. The situation isn’t like your friend Molly’s. She can spend every other weekend at her dad’s house because it’s only a mile away from her mother’s.”
Natalie’s chin trembled. “You’re just saying these things because you don’t think he’s going to want a relationship with me, huh.”
Rachel pulled the car up in front of their townhouse and turned off the engine. Eyeing her daughter she said, “I’m your mom and love you more than life itself. I’m trying to be as honest with you as I can.
“The truth is, I don’t know what he’ll think when he finds out he has a child. My greatest concern is to keep you from being hurt, but it isn’t possible to shield you from everything.”
Her daughter’s pained expression was the last thing she saw before Natalie opened the passenger door. She grabbed her things from the back seat and ran inside the house.
After locking the car, Rachel followed, but her heart was so heavy she felt like her body weighed a thousand pounds.
The second she stepped in the living room, the house phone rang. She almost jumped out of her skin before hurrying into the kitchen to get it.
Natalie had beaten her to it. Her brows furrowed before she put her hand over the mouthpiece.
“It’s Steve,” she whispered. “He’s worried because you weren’t at work and haven’t been answering your cell phone. Please call him back on it. I want to keep our phone free in case my father calls.”
Rachel took the phone from her and apologized to Steve for not calling him earlier. She told him something important had come up and she would call him back in a little while on her cell phone.
Not two seconds after Rachel had replaced the receiver, it rang again. She picked up immediately, thinking maybe he’d tried to tell her something vital and she’d cut him off too soon.
“Steve?”
“Afraid not. Bonsoir, Rachel.”
Her breath caught. “Tris—I—I wasn’t expecting you to phone for another couple of hours at least.”
Natalie was right there and knew her father was on the other end of the phone. Rachel could tell her daughter was so excited and nervous at the same time, she was practically dancing on the spot.
“I’m parked across the street. I take it that was my daughter Natalie I saw run in your house just now. She’d be the right age. From a distance she has the look of my mother.”
A moan escaped Rachel’s throat. Evidently he’d had a conversation with his nephew since phoning her. “Yes.”
There was a palpable silence. “Does she know who I am?” his voice grated.
“Yes.”
After she heard his sharp intake of breath he said, “Does your husband know I’m her father?”
Rachel trembled. “I-I’m not married yet.”
After a tension-filled pause, “Alain thought you were. So what are you saying? Are you engaged to this Steve? Living with him?”
No. Not even close.
She wheeled away from Natalie’s probing glance. It was uncanny how much he sounded so much like the old, decisive Tris who was a natural born leader and refused to let anything get in the way of what he wanted.
“No.”
“Then you and Natalie are alone right now?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m coming in.”
He clicked off before she could beg him not to.
Tris was angry.
It was a deep, profound anger. The kind that would make it difficult, if not impossible, for him to forgive her for her silence all these years.
Frightened in a brand-new way, Rachel put the phone back on the hook.
Natalie pulled on her arm. “When am I going to see him?”
Help.
“Right now. He’s walking up to the front door.”
Just then the doorbell rang.
“Oh my gosh— He knows who I am, huh.”
“Yes.”
“Can I answer it? Please?”
Her daughter’s beautiful dark brown eyes, so much like Tris’s, shone with a luster she’d never seen before.
“Go ahead,” she said through wooden lips.
Ever since Rachel had learned about Alain’s phone call, she’d had the presentiment that their lives would be thrown into chaos, never to be the same again.
With one unexpected turn of events, her carefully
