Chapter 4 - Michael Knew
Grant walked outside.
He didn’t slam the door.
He simply left the room as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in it.
I stayed.
Maybe because my anger had become too precise to move.
I looked at Vanessa.
“So you have known for six years.”
“I knew Michael wasn’t.”
“You knew there were only two men.”
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
There it was.
Not suspicion.
Not a family resemblance.
Knowledge strong enough that every adult in the room understood what it meant.
Grant returned five minutes later.
His eyes were red.
He looked at Vanessa.
“Why didn’t Michael tell me?”
“He wanted to.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
“Because I begged him not to.”
Grant laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Vanessa stood.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn Michael into part of the lie.”
“He knew.”
“He knew the biology. He didn’t create what happened.”
“Neither did I.”
“No. But you slept with me.”
Grant stopped.
“Yes.”
“You keep saying it like I did it alone.”
“I’m not.”
“Then stop looking at me like I stole a child you had already decided not to ask about.”
That landed.
Grant flinched.
I looked at him.
“What does she mean?”
He stared at the floor.
Nothing.
“Grant.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“When Sophie was about eight months old, I saw a picture.”
My stomach tightened.
“What picture?”
“Vanessa sent your mom one. Sophie was laughing.”
“And?”
“I thought she looked like my father.”
Nobody spoke.
Grant’s father had died the year before Sophie was born.
He had a distinctive crooked smile Grant inherited.
Mia had it too.
I suddenly remembered dozens of photographs.
Not proof.
A feeling.
“What did you do?” I asked.
Grant looked ashamed.
“I asked Vanessa.”
She nodded.
“He did.”
“And?”
“She told me I was imagining it.”
Grant continued.
“She said Michael’s mother had the same mouth.”
“Did you believe her?”
He took too long.
“No.”
That was the first answer all afternoon that actually hurt me physically.
“You didn’t believe her.”
“I wanted to.”
There.
That was Grant’s part.
Not a man who had been perfectly deceived for six years.
A man who saw a door and chose not to open it.
“Why?”
His eyes found mine.
“Because you were pregnant with Mia by then.”
I stared at him.
Mia.
Our second chance after the loss.
The pregnancy I had spent nine months terrified to celebrate.
“You thought knowing could hurt me.”
“Yes.”
“So you decided for me.”
His face broke.
“Yes.”
I turned away.
That was the sentence linking every person in the room.
Eleanor decided.
Vanessa decided.
Grant decided.
Michael, in his own way, had decided too.
Everybody managed truth according to what they thought someone else could survive.
Then called it love.
I heard little feet upstairs.
I turned.
Sophie stood halfway down the staircase.
Eleanor immediately rose.
“Sophie, sweetheart—”
Sophie didn’t look at her.
She looked at Grant.
Then me.
Then Vanessa.
Her face was wet.
“Why are you talking about Daddy like he wasn’t my dad?”
No adult in that room had a good answer ready.
And for once, that was probably a good thing.
May you like
Because Sophie did not need the fastest answer.
She needed us to stop making decisions before she even knew there was a question.
