Your sister,
Lily
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Our dad.
Your sister.
There was no mistake.
“I worked nights cleaning the building where Michael worked,” Teresa said. She was talking to the coffee table, not to me. “Seventeen years ago. He used to stay late. We’d talk. He was kind to me. Nobody in that building ever talked to the cleaning lady, but he did.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
“It went on for four months. Maybe five. Then he ended it. He said he loved his wife. He said he’d made a terrible mistake.” She swallowed. “Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.”
Seventeen years ago. I counted. Lily was born that spring. I’d been pregnant then too. I’d been swollen and sick and exhausted, falling asleep on the couch at eight o’clock every night. Michael had been working late a lot that winter. He’d say the quarter was crazy. He’d bring me ginger ale and saltines when he came home. He’d rub my feet.
“He paid,” Teresa said. “Every month. He never missed. He asked me to keep it quiet. He said he couldn’t lose his family. And I… I didn’t want to be the one who broke up a family. I’d grown up in a broken one. So I said fine. I took the money and I kept my mouth shut, and I raised her.”
She put her arm around Annie.
“Did he ever see her?” I heard myself ask.
Teresa hesitated.
“Once a year,” she said. “On her birthday. He’d take her for ice cream. She thought he was a friend of mine from work. Uncle Mike.”
Annie made a small sound. She was crying now, silently, looking at the gold watch.
“Then he stopped coming,” Teresa said. “And the money stopped. I found out from the newspaper. The obituary.” She wiped her eyes. “Survived by his loving wife Beth and his daughter Lily. That’s what it said. Just one daughter.”
The room was so quiet I could hear the refrigerator humming in the kitchen.
“I didn’t have any right to say anything,” Teresa said. “Not to you. Not to anybody. I wasn’t his wife. There was nothing in writing. He’d paid cash for thirteen years. So I picked up more shifts and I kept my mouth shut. Same as always.”
“How did Lily find out?” I asked. My mouth was dry.
