Chapter 9
The name stayed in the air.
Michael Reyes.
My mom didn't correct him. She didn't ask who that was. Her hand was still flat on the granite next to the envelope, fingers spread like she was holding herself up.
I waited for her to say it wasn't true.
"Is that my dad?" I asked.
Her eyes cut to me. For a second I thought she was going to tell me not to say that. Then her mouth did something tight and she looked down at the counter.
Daniel didn't answer for her. He stayed by the island, hands now at his sides, giving her the space to do it.
"Ethan," she said. Her voice was lower than before. "We need to be clear about something."
That was how she talked when I was in trouble at school. That careful calm.
I felt my chest get tight. "Is he?"
She breathed in through her nose. Held it. "The name on your birth certificate isn't your father."
The kitchen got quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator. I could hear the clock over the stove ticking.
I stared at her. "You said he left before I was born. You said he didn't want—"
"I know what I told you," she said quickly. She glanced at Daniel like she wished he wasn't there, then back at me. "It wasn't him. I made that up."
Made that up. The three words didn't make sense at first. I kept thinking about the picture she kept in the drawer in her bedroom, the one she said was him in college, a guy in a baseball cap I didn't really look like.
"So who is he?" I asked, even though Daniel had just said the name. I needed her to say it.
She swallowed. Her gold earrings caught the kitchen light when she moved. "Michael Reyes was... we were together. Ten years ago. Right before I moved here. I left without telling him I was pregnant."
The envelope was right there between us but I wasn't looking at it anymore. "You left and didn't tell him about me?"
"I thought I was protecting you," she said. Her hands were trembling now, so she folded them together. "I was young. He had his family here, his brother, his whole life. I thought if I left, it would be cleaner. I told everyone here a different story because it was easier."
Easier for who, I almost said. My throat was dry.
Daniel shifted his weight. His bomber jacket made a soft creak. "Claire," he said quietly.
She looked at him, and he gave her a small nod, like asking if he could explain the rest.
"He didn't know," Daniel said to me. "My brother didn't know about you at all, Ethan. Not for eight years."
I turned to him. "How is that possible?"
"Your mom didn't stay in touch. And we didn't have a way to find her," Daniel said. His voice stayed even, calm but tense the way it had been since the hallway. "About two years ago, your grandmother — Claire's mom — she finally forwarded a letter. She sent Michael your mom's new address. That's when he found out."
My mom closed her eyes for a second. "My mom told me not to tell him," she whispered. More to herself than to me. "She said he'd try to come back and ruin what I'd built."
"You let Grandma do that?" I said. My voice came out sharper than I meant. "For eight years he didn't know I existed?"
"Ethan—"
"Why would you lie about my dad?" I asked. It was the question that had been sitting in my stomach since she said she made it up. I wasn't crying. I just felt cold. "You let me think the guy on the paper just left because he didn't care about me. That whole time my real dad didn't even know?"
She reached across the island like she wanted to touch my hand, then stopped. "Because I was scared," she said. "If I told you the truth, you'd ask where he was. And I didn't have an answer I could live with. So I gave you one that would make you stop asking."
I stepped back from the counter. The envelope with the red wax seal was still sitting there, and now I knew whose handwriting had been under it, whose name Daniel had said.
"I thought my dad didn't want me," I said.
Daniel was watching me carefully. "He wanted to know you the second he found out," he said. "That's why he wrote. That's why he asked me to come."
May you like
My mom's eyes were wet now, but I didn't go to her. I kept my hands in the pockets of my white t-shirt and stared at the floor where the dark wood met the kitchen tile, trying to make the two stories in my head line up and failing.
I didn't forgive her. I couldn't.
