“So Alex was her adoptive father?”
“He adopted her at birth, but we wanted her to think it was the other way around. That I was the one who did the adopting. She thinks we used a surrogate through one of the agencies. We never wanted her to be…” he pauses, rubbing his eyes wearily. “Confused. We just never wanted her to be confused about her family. How it all held together. We wanted to avoid questions like why her aunt was her birth mother…why her father was her uncle.” He looks up at me, pain in his eyes. “See what I mean? It was too messy any other way.”
“I guess discovering that your aunt is really your birth mother would be pretty confusing,” I agree. “You’re right.”
“And that the daddy you worshipped was actually your uncle.”
“But you’re forgetting one thing, Michael,” I remind him.
“What’s that?”
“She deserves to know that her real father—”
“Alex was her real father too.”
“Well, but that her natural father,” I amend, “is alive. Andrea should know that. Don’t you think?”
“No.” He shakes his head vehemently. “No way. It would devastate her.”
“What makes you so sure?” I’m remembering my conversation with Andrea that day in the pool, how lost she sometimes seems. “That little girl thinks her natural father died.”
“I’d be taking away the last bit of Al that she’s holding onto.”
“But they’re still blood relatives,” I argue. “That wouldn’t change.”
For a long moment he seems to consider what I’m suggesting, growing quiet. “It’s what every couple wants, you know,” he finally says, smiling pensively. “A child that reflects them both. Reflects the best of what they are. That Andie popped out with a head full of auburn hair was like a gift. If she’d had my dark hair, she’d have known everything eventually.”
“But maybe it’s time that she did know, Michael,” I suggest gently. “Don’t you think Alex would’ve wanted that?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve made myself sick trying to figure all the things Allie would’ve wanted. For Andie, for her future, our family.” He rubs a hand across his eyes, shaking his head.
Closing my own eyes, I envision Alex from the photo in the bathroom. I envision him entrusting me with his family. “I don’t believe Alex would want you in so much pain, Michael. I believe he’d want Andrea to know you’re her father.”
“Rebecca, you don’t get it,” he disagrees, voice rising irritably. “She can’t know. ’Cause if she does, then she’ll know who her mother is. And I can’t risk losing her to Laurel like that!”
“But why does Laurel scare you so much?”
“Because she wants to take her!” he cries. “Don’t you understand? She wants our daughter, Rebecca. That’s it.”
“She wouldn’t do that, would she?”
“Oh, sure she would, you bet.” His voice seethes with anger, reflected in his face. “She filed papers after Alex’s death.”
“But why?” I can’t believe that it’s true, not after spending the evening around Laurel, seeing how gentle she seems to be. After seeing her unabashed affection for Michael and Andrea.
“She backed down after a few days,” he explains. “I begged her. I swear to God, I wasn’t above begging. I begged her not to try and take my baby. She was crazy with grief. I know that. Told me so later, and apologized, but…” His jaw twitches as he stares back at the house, as if Laurel could hear him from this end of the street.
I finish for him, “It’s hard to forget something like that.”
“Yeah, it is. There’s just this fear, always, that she’ll come after Andie again,” he says. “If her mother hadn’t talked some sense into her, God knows what would’ve happened. So I live with it, this insane fear that one day she’s gonna tell our daughter everything.”
“Well, you could tell Andrea the truth,” I suggest delicately. “That would take a lot of that fear away.” I shiver, feeling the chilled hush that’s fallen over the nighttime street.
He shakes his head, walking slowly up the sidewalk. “When Al and I decided we wanted a family, the one thing we both agreed on was we didn’t want our kids to get hurt. That we wanted things to feel as normal as possible for them.”
I’m not sure what to say, or even what he needs me to say. All I know is that these secrets that worked when his partner was alive now seem to be tearing their family apart. In profile, he’s the picture of resolute strength—the aristocratic nose, the strong jaw and chin. Too bad I realize that on the inside of the man, the empire is crumbling.
“And now Andrea blames you for everything that’s wrong in her life,” I finish for him. “Even her daddy’s death.”
“Kind of ironic, isn’t it?” Tears fill his eyes; I see them even in the darkness.