Patricia exhaled slowly.
“You should come here.”
“I’m tired of meetings where everyone knows something about my life except me.”
“Emily, there are details you don’t understand.”
“Then explain them.”
“Not over the phone.”
“Why? Afraid you’ll forget to hang up?”
She did not answer.
I nearly ended the call.
Then Patricia said, “The child’s name is Lily.”
My knees weakened.
“Is she Nathan’s daughter?”
Patricia hesitated.
“I think you should come here.”
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
The word cut through every remaining explanation.
“How old is she?”
“Seven.”
Sophie was eight.
The ages were possible.
Terribly possible.
Nathan and I had been married for eleven years. Sophie was born during our third year of marriage.
If Lily was seven, Nathan had been involved with Rachel when Sophie was still a baby.
“Did he cheat on me after Sophie was born?”
“Please come to the house.”
“Answer me.”
“I don’t know every detail.”
“But you knew about Lily.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since she was an infant.”
The room seemed to sway.
My husband’s entire family had known for seven years that he had another daughter.
I ended the call and drove to Patricia’s house.
She waited in the sitting room with a tea service arranged between us, as if the correct cups might soften what she was about to say.
I remained standing.
“Tell me everything.”
Patricia folded a handkerchief in her lap.
“About eight months after Sophie was born, Nathan attended a fundraising event in Westmere. Rachel was there.”
“And they slept together.”
Patricia looked down.
“Yes.”
“One time?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know more than you’re saying.”
“It lasted a few months.”
My hands curled at my sides.
Nathan had come home to me during those months.
He had held Sophie.
He had watched me struggle through exhaustion and postpartum anxiety while meeting his former wife in secret.
“Rachel became pregnant,” Patricia continued. “She told Nathan, but she did not ask him to leave you. Her father would have cut her off if the truth became public.”
“So they hid Lily.”
“Nathan arranged a private paternity test.”
“And it confirmed he was the father.”
“Yes.”
I sat because my legs could no longer support me.
“How often did he see her?”
“A few times a year at first. More recently.”
“Why more recently?”
Patricia’s expression changed.
“Rachel’s father died last year.”
“So she no longer had to hide Lily.”
“No.”
“And that is when she began waiting?”
Patricia looked toward the window.
I remembered the unfinished phone call.
Rachel has waited long enough.
“What exactly has Rachel been waiting for?”
“Emily—”
“What decision is Nathan making?”
Patricia’s eyes filled with tears.
“He is considering whether he should be with Rachel and Lily.”
The room became very quiet.
“What about Sophie?”
“He loves Sophie.”
“That was not my question.”
“He wants the girls to know each other.”
“And he thinks the best way to accomplish that is to leave his wife and build another home?”
