Chapter 10 - The Father Who Wasn't)
Daniel ran upstairs.
Claire followed.
The second floor appeared empty.
Then a bedroom door moved.
Daniel kicked it open.
Nobody.
The window was raised.
Curtains moved in the night wind.
On the bed sat a portable speaker.
The voice had been recorded.
Daniel grabbed it.
“Son of a bitch!”
Claire remained downstairs staring at the birth certificate.
Daniel returned.
“Somebody wanted us to find this.”
Claire nodded.
“Question is who.”
They took everything.
At Laura's house, federal agents examined the certificate.
It appeared authentic.
Margaret refused to discuss it.
Daniel sat across from her.
“Is Thomas my father?”
Margaret said nothing.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“Is Thomas my biological father?”
“No.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Laura reached for him.
He pulled away—not from her, but from everyone.
“Who is?”
Margaret whispered, “I don’t know.”
Claire laughed.
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I was nineteen.”
“That isn't an answer.”
Margaret stood.
“It’s the only answer you’re getting.”
Daniel exploded.
“Thirty-nine years!”
Emily appeared in the hallway.
Laura immediately went to her.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“For thirty-nine years you let me believe another man was my father.”
“Thomas was your father.”
“He wasn’t.”
“He raised you.”
“For eleven years! Then he disappeared!”
Margaret looked devastated.
“You think biology is what makes someone your father?”
“No. Staying does.”
Margaret flinched.
Daniel regretted it instantly but did not apologize.
Claire inserted the cassette from Lake Geneva into an old player supplied by an agent.
Thomas’s voice emerged.
“Margaret, if you’re hearing this, Daniel knows.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Thomas continued.
“I promised never to tell him unless Arthur’s network returned.”
Daniel leaned forward.
Thomas explained that Margaret had arrived at his apartment pregnant in 1986.
Terrified.
She refused to name the father.
Thomas married her.
He raised Daniel as his own.
Claire had been born four years earlier from Thomas’s previous marriage, whose wife had died shortly after childbirth.
That made Claire and Daniel legally siblings but not biologically related.
Claire whispered, “You never told me.”
Margaret answered, “Thomas wanted you to be family.”
“We were family.”
Thomas continued.
“The identity of Daniel’s biological father matters only because Margaret has spent her entire life refusing to speak his name.”
Margaret abruptly switched off the tape.
Daniel turned it back on.
Thomas’s next sentence destroyed what little remained of the old Hayes family.
“I believe Daniel’s biological father is Arthur Hayes.”
Claire stared at Margaret.
Laura felt sick.
Daniel whispered, “Arthur?”
His grandfather.
Or the man he had been taught to call his grandfather.
Margaret shook her head violently.
“No.”
Thomas continued.
“If I am right, Daniel is not simply connected to the Preservation Trust.”
A pause.
“He is its legal heir.”
Daniel stood.
“I don’t want it.”
Thomas continued as if answering him.
“You may not want it. Others do.”
The cassette clicked.
Then Thomas said one final sentence.
May you like
“And if Laura is beside you, tell her I am sorry I chose her.”
Laura stopped breathing.
