Chapter 1 - The Other Daddy
Ariel’s third birthday had been perfect until she pointed at Clara’s stomach.
The backyard was full of children, inflatable toys, melting ice cream, and relatives pretending not to compare whose life looked happiest.
Then Clara climbed out of the pool.
My stepmother wore a dark-blue one-piece swimsuit. Water ran from her silver-blonde hair as she reached for a towel.
Ariel stopped running.
Her entire expression changed.
“Mommy…”
I crouched beside her.
“What?”
She pointed.
“Daddy’s in there.”
Everyone nearby laughed.
I did too.
For approximately two seconds.
Then Ariel began crying.
“No! The other Daddy!”
My smile vanished.
She pointed harder at a faded mark just above Clara’s left hip.
Clara looked down.
And immediately covered it with her hand.
That reaction mattered.
Glen saw it.
His plastic cup slipped from his fingers and shattered against the concrete.
Nobody laughed anymore.
I looked at my husband.
“Glen?”
He didn’t answer.
His face had turned pale.
Clara began backing toward her lounge chair.
Ariel buried herself against my leg.
I grabbed Glen’s forearm.
“Why are you looking at her like that?”
Still nothing.
Then Clara whispered:
“You said Megan never saw the photograph.”
My stomach dropped.
“What photograph?”
Glen finally looked at me.
“Clara, stop.”
But Ariel was already running toward her tiny pool bag.
She pulled out an old photograph, bent at one corner.
“I found it.”
My daughter handed it to me.
The image showed Clara thirty years younger, standing beside a man who looked so much like Glen that for one irrational second I thought it was him.
Same dark eyes.
Same crooked smile.
Same narrow scar near the eyebrow.
But Glen would have been a child when the photograph was taken.
Then I noticed the little girl standing between them.
Brown curls.
Yellow dress.
A silver bracelet I still owned.
Me.
I looked from the photograph to Clara.
Then to Glen.
“Why am I in this?”
Clara began silently crying.
Glen whispered:
“Megan, don’t turn it over.”
So naturally, I did.
On the back were four handwritten words.
Megan belongs to Gabriel too.
My fingers went cold.
“Who is Gabriel?”
Glen stared at the photograph.
Then at the faded mark near Clara’s waist.
“My brother.”
I almost laughed.
“You don’t have a brother.”
He answered quietly:
“That’s what my family told everyone.”
Then Ariel pointed at the man in the photograph.
“The other Daddy.”
And Clara suddenly whispered:
“She remembers his face.”
I stared at my three-year-old daughter.
“How could Ariel possibly remember a man who disappeared before I even met Glen?”
Nobody answered.
But Glen’s expression told me something worse.
May you like
Gabriel had not disappeared before I met him.
He had been around much more recently.
