Chapter 6 - THE SISTER DANIEL NEVER HAD
Daniel came home expecting an argument about Gordon.
Sarah was sitting at the kitchen island with no dinner started and both hands around a cold mug.
He knew immediately.
“What?”
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“Daniel.”
He stared.
Then sat.
Sarah told him.
Once.
No buildup.
“Mara Quinn is your half-sister.”
Daniel looked at her.
Nothing happened in his face for several seconds.
Then he laughed.
“No.”
“Her attorney confirmed it with permission.”
“No.”
“Daniel.”
“My dad has one child.”
Sarah waited.
“Me.”
She did not correct him.
He stood.
“My mother would've known.”
Sarah said nothing.
He looked at her.
“Wouldn't she?”
“I don't know.”
Daniel picked up his phone.
Called Gordon.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
He slammed the phone on the island.
Sarah flinched.
Daniel immediately regretted it.
He moved away.
“Sorry.”
She nodded.
Then:
“There's more.”
“Of course there is.”
Public records did not prove family affection.
They did prove biology.
Mara Quinn's birth certificate, available through a legal genealogy service Elena had authorized for verification, listed:
Mother:
Lynn Quinn.
Father:
Gordon Michael Parker.
Date:
Seven years before Daniel's birth.
Daniel stared at the scanned copy.
His father's name looked obscene there.
Not because Gordon had another child.
Because Daniel had spent thirty-eight years inside a version of his father where she did not exist.
“Did Mom know?”
“We don't know.”
“I want to know.”
“Then ask him.”
“He won't answer.”
“Not yet.”
Daniel paced.
Then stopped.
A memory had surfaced.
A girl sitting on the back steps of his childhood home.
Older than him.
Maybe eighteen.
Dark hair.
Jean jacket.
She let Daniel use her Walkman once.
He had been ten or eleven.
He remembered asking his mother who she was.
His mother said:
Someone your father knows.
Daniel had forgotten her face.
Forgotten the day.
“What?”
Sarah asked.
“I met her.”
“You remember?”
“I don't know.”
He told her.
A teenage or young adult woman.
One afternoon.
Maybe two.
His mother angry inside the kitchen.
Gordon talking quietly in the driveway.
Daniel remembered the girl giving him a cassette.
Tom Petty.
“Was her name Mara?”
“I don't know.”
Sarah waited.
Daniel stared at the birth certificate.
“Why would he hide a daughter?”
No answer.
Then his anger redirected.
“The money.”
Sarah nodded.
“Ninety-four thousand.”
“She paid it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Her attorney didn't say.”
“She doesn't know me.”
Sarah looked at him.
“Maybe she does.”
Daniel's face hardened.
“What does that mean?”
“She believed you knew she was your sister.”
“So?”
“And she believed you didn't want contact.”
Daniel stopped.
“Who told her that?”
Sarah did not need to answer.
May you like
Both looked toward the front door.
Gordon.
