“This may explain why Daniel has been helping her.”
I stared at her.
“Then tell me.”
Margaret hesitated.
“There is something Daniel never told you.”
I waited.
She looked down at the photograph.
“Vanessa’s son may be Daniel’s.”
The room went completely silent.
I felt as if the floor had shifted beneath me.
“What?”
Margaret immediately raised her hands.
“I don’t know that for certain. I’m telling you what I remember.”
She explained that years earlier, before Daniel and I met, he and Vanessa had dated briefly.
They had separated badly.
Vanessa later married someone else.
Margaret had not seen her for years.
Then, several months earlier, Vanessa had contacted Daniel.
She told him her marriage was over.
She told him she was struggling.
And she told him something else.
She believed Daniel was the biological father of her son.
I stared at the photographs.
Suddenly, every strange piece of the last several months looked different.
The hotel.
The jewelry.
The secret messages.
The way Daniel had immediately become defensive whenever Vanessa’s name came up.
But there was one thing I still did not understand.
“If he believed that boy might be his son, why didn’t he tell me?”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because he was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Losing you.”
I looked down at the folder.
I almost laughed at the irony.
He had been so afraid of losing me that he had lied to me until losing me became the natural consequence.
That evening, Daniel came home.
Margaret was still there.
I placed the photographs on the table.
His face changed instantly.
“Where did you get those?”
“Your mother brought them.”
He looked at Margaret.
“Mom.”
She stood.
