I’d changed a flat tire in a parking garage in heels, and he’d laughed. ‘Look at you, country girl.’
I’d taken it as a compliment then.
Somewhere along the way, it had become his way of reminding me which one of us he thought was smarter.
She just stared at me.
At a rest stop, I pulled over and sat with my hands on the wheel. I could still turn around.
Greg could come home the next day, kiss my forehead, and I could pretend I hadn’t seen his SUV in Rachel’s driveway.
Then I thought about Leo telling me, Dad said it was our secret.
I put the car back in drive.
By the time I turned onto Rachel’s street, rain was tapping against the windshield. Porch lights glowed along a row of modest houses.
“What are you doing here?”
Greg’s silver SUV sat at the curb.
I parked one house down and stared at it through the rain.
For the first time that day, I stopped wondering whether I was wrong.
Now I only wondered how much Greg had lied about.
I knocked.
Rachel opened the door. For a second, she just stared at me.
“Separating?”
Then the color drained from her face. “Hannah?”
“Rachel?”
Her grip tightened on the doorknob. “What are you doing here?”
“I think you know.”
She glanced over her shoulder, and something in her expression changed. “He said he’d told you.”
“Is she yours?”
“Told me what?”
Her eyes flicked toward Greg. “About Carol. About him being here.” She swallowed. “He said you two were separating. That you knew he was helping us move.”
Behind her, Greg stood in sweatpants beside an open kitchen box.
I looked at him. “Separating?”
“Hannah…”
“I wanted to know my daughter.”
Carol ran past Rachel and wrapped her arms around Greg’s leg like she’d done it a hundred times.
I looked straight at him. “Is she yours?”
“Hannah, it’s not…”
“Greg.”
His shoulders dropped. “Yes. I only found out a few months ago. Rachel had a DNA test done. Another man was ruled out, and a second test confirmed me.”
“You told me she knew.”
“So you started visiting her.”
“I wanted to know my daughter.”
“And you brought Leo.”
“I wanted them to know each other.”
“Without telling me they were brother and sister.”
“I was helping Rachel move.”
