Chapter 2 - The Three Seconds Before Daniel Lied
People often imagine lies as fast things.
A sentence invented instantly.
A denial thrown up like a shield.
Emma discovered that the worst lies sometimes arrived after silence.
Three seconds.
That was how long Daniel took.
One.
His eyes moved toward Ethan.
Two.
His mouth tightened.
Three.
He looked back at Emma.
“I don’t know.”
Emma almost smiled.
Because now she knew.
Not who Ethan’s father was.
But that Daniel knew.
She held up her phone.
“Your mother called Andrew.”
Daniel’s expression collapsed.
Ethan looked up from the couch.
“Uncle Andrew?”
Emma immediately lowered her voice.
“Ethan, honey, can you take your tablet to your room?”
He hesitated.
“Am I in trouble?”
The question hurt more than she expected.
“No.”
“Because Sophie took my food.”
“No one is in trouble for food.”
Ethan looked confused.
Emma walked over and crouched beside him.
“What Grandma did was wrong.”
He stared toward the hallway.
“She said girls aren’t supposed to take things from boys.”
Emma felt anger rising again.
“Grandma is wrong.”
Ethan looked at Daniel.
“Dad?”
Daniel swallowed.
“Emma’s right.”
Ethan nodded uncertainly and walked toward his room.
He stopped.
“Is Grandma coming back?”
“No,” Emma said.
Daniel glanced at her.
Emma did not care.
After Ethan closed his door, she replayed the recording.
Daniel stood completely still.
Martha’s voice filled the room.
“She still doesn’t know whose child Ethan really is.”
Then:
“If she finds out what Daniel did eight years ago, we lose everything.”
Emma paused the recording.
Daniel sat down.
Not voluntarily.
His legs seemed to fail him.
“What did you do?”
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“Emma.”
“What did you do?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No.”
She walked closer.
“Complicated is forgetting an anniversary. Complicated is owing taxes. Complicated is explaining why your mother has treated Ethan like a prince and Sophie like an inconvenience since the day she was born.”
Daniel looked up.
Emma continued.
“You told me she just bonded with Ethan because Rebecca died.”
“She did.”
“You told me she was grieving.”
“She was.”
“You told me I was imagining the difference.”
Daniel’s silence answered that one.
Emma’s stomach tightened.
“Oh my God.”
“Emma.”
“You knew.”
Daniel stood.
“I knew Mom favored him.”
“And you let me think I was crazy.”
“I was trying to keep the peace.”
“You were trying to keep a secret.”
Daniel paced toward the window.
Emma watched his reflection in the glass.
“Is Andrew Ethan’s father?”
Daniel turned immediately.
“No.”
Too immediate.
Too certain.
Emma noticed.
“Then who?”
Daniel walked back.
“Rebecca never told me.”
“But you know something.”
He shook his head.
“What?”
“Something happened before she died.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Emma waited.
Finally he said, “Rebecca wanted to leave.”
“Leave where?”
“The family.”
Emma frowned.
“Why?”
“She said Mom was controlling her. She said Andrew was spying on her. She said she had found documents she wasn’t supposed to see.”
“What documents?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I didn’t know.”
“Then what did you do?”
Daniel’s eyes filled with something Emma had never seen directed at her before.
Shame.
“She came to me.”
“When?”
“Three days before she died.”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“What did she want?”
“She wanted money. She wanted me to drive her somewhere.”
“Where?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“And?”
“I told Mom.”
The apartment became very quiet.
Emma stared at him.
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“I thought Rebecca was having some kind of breakdown.”
“So you told Martha.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Mom went to Rebecca’s apartment.”
Daniel stopped.
Emma waited.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying again.”
“I left.”
“You left?”
“They were screaming. Rebecca told me to get out. Mom told me she would handle it.”
Emma’s heart began beating faster.
“And three days later Rebecca died.”
Daniel did not answer.
Emma remembered the funeral.
Closed casket.
Martha crying into a white handkerchief.
Andrew refusing to speak.
Daniel holding baby Ethan.
Rebecca had supposedly suffered a fatal reaction to prescription medication.
Emma had never questioned it.
Why would she?
She had been twenty-two.
Newly married.
Desperate to belong to the family that had welcomed her after her own mother died.
Daniel whispered, “There’s something else.”
Emma looked at him.
“Rebecca left me a voicemail.”
“When?”
“The night before she died.”
Emma stared.
“What did she say?”
Daniel looked toward Ethan’s bedroom.
“She said if anything happened to her, I needed to protect Ethan from our family.”
Emma felt sick.
“And you never told me.”
“I deleted it.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom found out it existed.”
Emma stepped backward.
Daniel continued.
“She told me Rebecca had become paranoid. She said if police heard the voicemail, they might take Ethan into foster care while they investigated.”
“So you deleted evidence.”
Daniel flinched.
“I was scared.”
Emma stared at him.
“For eight years?”
Daniel opened his mouth.
Before he could answer, someone knocked.
Three slow knocks.
Daniel went pale.
Emma walked toward the door.
“Who is it?”
A man answered.
“Andrew.”
Daniel whispered, “Don’t open it.”
Emma looked through the peephole.
Andrew Miller stood outside.
May you like
Beside him was Martha.
And Martha was holding a folder thick enough to contain years of secrets.
