The Social Security caseworker said the words “another child,” and for one terrible second, Claire Bennett thought she had misheard her. Her ex-husband had been dead four months, buried in a cemetery outside Dayton, Ohio, beneath a stone Claire herself had paid for, and somehow Daniel was still finding ways to bring secrets into her life.
Chapter 2
Claire waited nearly a month before telling Emily. During that time she spoke with her mother, both of her brothers, and Emily’s therapist, Dr. Rosen, who had helped the girl through the divorce and then through Daniel’s sudden death. Everyone told Claire some version of the same thing: Emily deserved the truth because the request involved her body, her DNA, and possibly a biological sibling.
So one Sunday afternoon, Claire sat beside her daughter on the living room couch and told her.
Emily stared at her for a long time after Claire finished.
“Dad had a son?”
“Possibly.”
“While you two were married?”
Claire swallowed. “That’s what the timing suggests.”
Emily stood and walked to the window. Outside, patches of dirty snow remained beneath the maple trees. Claire expected anger, but the first thing she saw was grief.
“I thought I knew all the bad stuff already,” Emily whispered.
Claire’s heart broke at the sentence.
“You never have to defend him to me,” she said. “And you don’t have to hate him either.”
Emily wiped at her cheek. “They want my DNA?”
“Yes.”
“Do I have to?”
“No.”
The answer came so quickly that Emily turned around.
Claire leaned forward. “Listen to me. There are adults involved who made choices before you had any say in them. You are not responsible for fixing those choices. If you decide you want the test, I’ll support you. If you decide you don’t, I’ll support that too.”
“What happens to the boy if I say no?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the hardest truth of all.
Emily sat down again. “I need time.”
“Then you have time.”
Two weeks later Tara finally approached Claire directly.
She waited near the hospital cafeteria at the end of Claire’s shift, twisting the strap of her purse with nervous fingers. She looked older than Claire remembered, and more tired. Claire could have walked past her. Instead, against every instinct urging her to keep moving, she stopped.
“I heard you wanted to talk.”
Tara nodded. “Not here.”
They agreed to meet Saturday morning at a coffee shop several blocks from the hospital.
Claire arrived first and chose a table near the window. She ordered plain coffee she barely touched. When Tara walked in, she looked around as though she expected people to recognize what she had done simply by looking at her.
She sat across from Claire.
For several seconds, neither woman spoke.
Finally Tara said, “I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Claire almost smiled. “Then we’re several years late for that conversation.”
Tara flinched but continued. She told Claire that she and Daniel had begun as friends. Tara was raising two children from a previous relationship, and Daniel often gave her advice when she complained about their father. Friendship became flirting. Flirting became lunches, secret messages, and eventually hotel rooms.
By the time Daniel said Claire was becoming suspicious, Tara was pregnant.
“What did he say when you told him?” Claire asked.
Tara looked down. “He said he wasn’t leaving you.”
The words should not have mattered. Claire had divorced Daniel herself. He was dead now. Yet hearing that he had refused to leave her while sleeping with another woman made her feel as though somebody had reopened an old scar simply to examine it.
“He said he loved you,” Tara continued. “He said he would help me financially, but he wouldn’t leave his family.”
Claire stared at her. “And that was good enough for you?”
“No. But I was pregnant. I already had two kids. I needed help.”
“Why didn’t you establish paternity?”
“Daniel gave me money. Groceries sometimes. Rent when I was short. He didn’t want anything official.”
“And you agreed.”
Tara’s expression hardened. “You think I don’t know I made mistakes?”
“I don’t know what you know.”
“I know I was jealous of you.”
Claire blinked.
Tara gave a bitter little laugh. “He loved you. Even when he was with me, he talked about you. Your house. Your daughter. Things you’d done together. It made me crazy sometimes.”
Claire felt no victory in hearing it. A husband who claimed to love his wife while betraying her was not romantic. It was simply another kind of selfishness.
Claire folded her hands. “Did you ever think about what this would do to Emily?”
Tara’s face changed.
Not with shame.
With irritation.
“I had enough going on with my own children,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about yours.”
Claire’s body went still.
“You weren’t thinking about her?”
“I’m being honest. No. I had my own problems. Quite frankly, Claire, your daughter wasn’t my responsibility.”
For several seconds the coffee shop seemed unnaturally quiet.
Claire looked at the woman across from her and understood something that made the entire conversation simpler.
Tara had not asked to meet because she was sorry.
She had asked because she needed something.
“I told Emily about your son,” Claire said.
Tara immediately leaned forward. “Good. So she’ll do the test?”
“No. She doesn’t want to.”
“What do you mean, she doesn’t want to?”
“Exactly what I said.”
“She’s fifteen.”
“And it’s her DNA.”
Tara’s voice rose. “You’re her mother. Make her.”
A couple at the next table glanced over.
Claire lowered her own voice. “I will not force my daughter to undergo a DNA test because you and Daniel chose not to establish your son’s paternity when Daniel was alive.”
“You don’t understand. I only work part-time. I have three kids. The survivor money could make a huge difference.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“Then talk her into it.”
“No.”
Tara slapped one palm against the table. “That money isn’t just hers if my son is Daniel’s too.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
Claire stared at her.
“Five minutes ago you told me my daughter was never your responsibility. You said you didn’t care what your affair did to her because you had your own children to worry about. Now you’re sitting here demanding that the same girl you didn’t care about put aside her feelings to solve a problem you had years to solve yourself.”
Tara’s eyes flashed. “He is an innocent child.”
“So is she.”
“He’s three!”
“And she buried her father four months ago.”
Tara leaned back, breathing hard.
Claire picked up her coat. “If you had shown one ounce of concern for what this did to Emily, maybe I would have gone home and encouraged her to reconsider someday. But I will not bully my child for you.”
“You’re punishing my son.”
“No. I’m protecting my daughter.”
Tara stood as Claire did. “You think you’re better than me?”
Claire pulled on her coat.
“No,” she said. “I think both of us made mistakes where Daniel was concerned. The difference is, I’m not asking your child to pay for mine.”
Then she walked out while Tara shouted her name behind her.
