Chapter 6 - ADAM
Adam Hayes had been dead for two years.
Thirty-three.
Car accident outside Albany.
No drugs in his system.
No criminal secret.
No convenient villain.
He had been complicated enough alive.
Ryan's younger brother by three years.
Funny.
Restless.
Brilliant with numbers.
Terrible with money.
The kind of person who could talk a stranger into a road trip and forget to pay his electricity bill before leaving.
Ryan loved him.
Ryan also spent much of his adult life cleaning up after him.
That resentment was still present even after death.
Now Adam was back in the room.
Mara had known Adam socially through Ryan.
After Ryan ended the relationship and reconciled with Claire, Mara ran into Adam at a friend's birthday.
They slept together once.
Maybe twice.
Dates overlapped the conception window.
Mara told Grant that immediately.
Grant did not tell Ryan.
Or Adam.
At first.
Claire admitted she knew Mara had mentioned another man.
She did not know it was Adam until Lily was nearly two.
Ryan stared.
“How?”
“Grant told me.”
“Why?”
“Because Adam found one of the payment transfers.”
Grant used a family office account.
Adam saw Mara's name while helping reconcile taxes.
He confronted Grant.
Grant told him enough.
Not everything.
Adam contacted Mara himself.
Nora had those messages.
She brought printouts.
Adam:
Grant says there's a possibility I'm Lily's father. I won't show up at your house. I just need to know what you want me to do.
Mara:
I want you both to stop letting Grant manage this.
Ryan almost smiled.
That sounded like the woman he remembered.
Adam asked for testing.
Then backed out before the appointment.
Why?
He wrote:
If it is me, I don't know how to be what she needs yet. If it isn't me, I don't want to be relieved. Give me a little time.
He asked for time.
Mara gave it.
Then more.
Then Grant got involved again.
Ryan asked:
“Did Adam ever meet Lily?”
Nora nodded.
“Once.”
Ryan's head came up.
“At a park. Mara was there. So was Grant.”
“How old was Lily?”
“Three.”
“What did she call him?”
“Adam.”
Not Daddy.
Ryan sat back.
“Then why did she call me that?”
Nora looked toward Claire.
Claire shook her head.
“I swear I didn't teach her.”
Nora answered.
“Mara did.”
Ryan looked at her.
Nora continued.
Mara kept photographs of Ryan.
Not romantic ones.
Public pictures from his architecture firm's website.
One family picture Grant sent her.
Ryan with Ethan.
Mara told Lily:
That's Ryan. He may be your dad.
Five-year-old vocabulary did the rest.
Over time “may be” became “is.”
Nora tried correcting it.
Mara told her not to.
“Why?”
Ryan asked.
Nora's face tightened.
“Because Mara had decided she was going to test.”
“When?”
“After Grant died.”
That was eighteen months ago.
“What stopped her?”
“Adam died four months before Grant.”
The second possible father was gone.
Mara did not want to ask Ryan for a paternity test while he was grieving Adam.
She waited.
Then Ryan's father died too.
Another funeral.
Another reason.
Another delay.
Everyone kept finding reasons.
Now Mara was dead.
And Lily had arrived before the truth did.
Ryan looked at Claire.
“How long have you known Adam might be her father?”
“Three years.”
“Three.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Claire looked exhausted.
“Because once Adam knew, I thought it belonged to the three of them.”
“I'm one of the three.”
“No. Mara. Adam. Grant.”
Ryan stared.
Claire heard it too late.
May you like
She had listed the people allowed to decide his own life—
and left Ryan outside it.
