Preston looked at Eli again.
“What’s your name?”
Eli glanced at me.
I nodded.
“Eli Carter.”
Preston swallowed.
“And you?”
“Jordan.”
“Micah.”
“Sophie.”
Grace stepped behind me, suddenly shy.
I touched her shoulder.
“And Grace,” I said.
Preston stared at them.
Vanessa moved between us.
“This is disgusting.”
My head turned toward her.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me. Warren is being buried, and you bring five children here to stage some kind of emotional ambush?”
She pointed toward the parking lot.
“Take them and leave.”
Sophie looked up at her.
“We came to say goodbye to our grandpa.”
Vanessa’s eyes hardened.
“He wasn’t your grandfather.”
And that was the first moment I felt real anger.
Not for myself.
For my daughter.
I stepped forward.
“Never speak to my children like that again.”
Vanessa scoffed.
“You don’t get to rewrite biology because you showed up wearing medals.”
“I don’t have to rewrite biology.”
Something in my voice made Preston look at me sharply.
Vanessa heard it too.
Her confidence slipped.
Only for a second.
Then she reached toward Sophie.
“Come on. You children need to—”
I caught Vanessa’s wrist before her hand touched my daughter.
“Don’t.”
I didn’t raise my voice.
I didn’t need to.
“Do not touch her.”
She pulled free.
Preston finally spoke.
“Vanessa.”
She turned.
“What?”
“Go stand with my mother.”
Her mouth opened.
“Preston—”
“Now.”
For the first time since I arrived, Vanessa looked genuinely unsettled.
But she didn’t leave.
Instead, she stayed close enough to hear everything.
Preston looked at me again.
“Are they mine?”
There it was.
The question I had imagined hearing a thousand times.
For years, I thought I would enjoy this moment.
I thought I would want him humiliated.
I thought I would want to make him suffer for every fever I handled alone, every school concert with one empty parent chair, every Father’s Day craft my children never knew who to give to.
But standing there beside Warren’s casket, I didn’t feel victorious.
