Chapter 4
The next morning, I didn’t tell Betty and Mia their father would stay. I didn’t know if he would, and they deserved better than another promise made to quiet a fear.
I told them we’d make the next decision together. Then I texted Amanda and asked if she’d sit with them while I spoke to Daniel nearby.
Her reply came quickly: Of course. They can decide whether they want me there.
The café smelled of cinnamon and wet wool. Snowmelt shone on the floor beneath the windows, and every time the door opened, cold air slipped between the tables.
Amanda sat with the girls in a booth where they could see me. Mia had a mug of hot chocolate cupped in both hands. Betty was drawing on a paper napkin, her eyes lifting from it whenever Daniel moved.
He waited until I’d taken off my coat before he spoke.
“Thank you for coming.”
“I haven’t decided what I’m thanking you for.”
He nodded and let the answer stand. That small restraint made it harder to keep my guard up, not easier.
For a moment, the only sound between us was the clink of cups. Then Daniel looked down at his hands.
“I never understood why you left.”
The words hit somewhere old and tender. I kept my voice even.
“You didn’t know?”
“I knew you were gone. I didn’t know why.” His gaze met mine. “I didn’t know you were pregnant. I didn’t know about the girls.”
I searched his face for the turn that would make his words another polished excuse. All I found was a tiredness I couldn’t yet afford to trust.
“What did your mother tell you?”
“That you’d left Chicago. When I asked about you, I was told you wanted no contact.” He swallowed. “I don’t know what else she said. I don’t know what she did.”
The old office came back in flashes: Eleanor’s neat folder, the emails laid out like evidence, the recorder on her desk. I remembered my own hands trembling as I read a sentence that looked as if I’d written it.
“I thought the emails were real,” I said. “She showed me messages that made it look like I’d sent company information outside Harden Systems. She said she could take them to the authorities, and that if I stayed, you’d lose everything.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“They were fake,” I said. “I know that now. I didn’t know it then.”
“And the recording?”
My fingers curled around the warm cup. “It was your voice.”
“What did it say?”
I made myself look at him. “A child right now would destroy everything. Fix it.”
Daniel went still. Across the café, Mia’s spoon tapped her mug. The ordinary little sound seemed to reach all the way through me.
“I never said that to you,” he said.
“I believed it was you.”
“I know.” His voice roughened, but he didn’t reach for my hand. “I’m not asking you to believe me now.”
That, at least, was different. He didn’t ask me to put eight years of fear away because he’d found the right words over coffee.
“Did you know she’d show me those emails?” I asked.
“No.” Anger moved across his face, quick and contained. “I didn’t know what she’d told you. I didn’t even know you thought I’d chosen the company.”
My cup had gone cold in my hands. I set it down carefully.
“I thought you’d heard about the pregnancy and decided it was a problem to fix.”
“I’m sorry.” He paused. “I know that doesn’t change what happened.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
He nodded again. No defense. No request that I make his regret easier to carry.
From the booth, Betty looked over. I gave her a small nod—not a promise, just a sign I was all right. She returned to her drawing, though her pencil stayed poised.
Daniel followed my glance, then looked back at me.
“What do we do now?”
“Find out what’s true. Not what either of us remembers under pressure.”
He took out his phone. “There’s someone at Harden Systems who worked with the old communications records. Lena Park. If anyone can tell us whether those messages existed, it’s her.”
“Can she still access them?”
“I don’t know.” He scrolled through his contacts, then paused. “I can ask her to preserve whatever’s left. I won’t ask her to take your side. I’ll ask her to keep the records from disappearing.”
The distinction mattered. It didn’t make me trust him, but it gave me room to breathe.
He called. When Lena answered, he put the phone on speaker and kept it between us.
“Daniel,” she said. “I heard about the wedding.”
“I need to ask about the old communications archive. From the Chicago office, eight years ago.”
There was a brief silence.
“That archive was moved more than once,” Lena said. “Some of it may still be there.”
“Can you preserve it?”
“I can look into it. I can’t promise what I’ll find.”
“Please don’t let anything be deleted while you check.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Her voice was careful. Not unkind, but careful enough to make the back of my neck tighten.
Daniel thanked her and ended the call. Before either of us could speak, his phone lit up with a message.
He read it, and the change in his face made my stomach knot.
“Eleanor?” I asked.
He turned the screen toward me.
Come back to the family suite alone. Stop involving outsiders.
A second message appeared beneath it.
We can settle this as a family.
The café’s warmth suddenly felt thin. Eleanor had already tried to have me removed from the hotel. Now she was telling her son to come alone, as if the children and I were a problem he could leave behind with his coat.
Daniel’s thumb hovered over the screen.
“She wants you back in her suite,” I said.
“She wants me there without you.”
“And you?”
He looked toward the girls. Betty had stopped drawing. She was watching us openly now, while Mia leaned close to Amanda and whispered something I couldn’t hear.
“I’m not going,” Daniel said.
I studied him, searching for the reflexive certainty that had once been turned against me. “That’s a choice. It isn’t proof.”
“I know.”
He put the phone away. We agreed to keep Lena’s call between us for now, and to share anything she found before either of us acted on it. It was a small agreement, held together by more questions than trust.
Then Daniel’s phone rang.
May you like
Lena’s name appeared on the screen. He answered and put it on speaker again.
“Daniel, I just checked the archive request queue,” she said. Her careful voice had gone tight. “Someone has already requested deletion of the oldest company archive.”
