I stared at him.
He knew her name. He knew her age. He said her name the way you say the name of somebody you love.
Somewhere out there was a little girl who called my boyfriend Daddy.
And I’d known absolutely nothing about her.
“How long?” I said.
Ethan frowned. “What?”
“How long have you known about her?”
He looked at my father.
“Don’t look at him!” I shouted. “I’m asking you!”
Ethan flinched.
“Three years,” he whispered.
I felt like someone had slapped me across the face.
Three years. Three years of birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas mornings. Three years of ugly sweaters and Sunday pancakes and Paolo at the restaurant. Three years of him telling me he loved me. Three years of please, not tonight.
I turned to my father.
“And you knew?”
Dad lowered his eyes. He looked at the kitchen floor.
“Yes, sweetheart,” he said. “I knew.”
I looked back and forth between them. And I suddenly understood that the two men I trusted most in the whole world had spent three years keeping the same secret from me. Together.
“Start explaining,” I said. “Now.”
Ethan pulled out a kitchen chair for me. I didn’t sit down. I stayed standing, gripping the back of it.
“Before I met you,” he said, “I dated a woman named Megan. Megan Foster. For about a year. We broke up seven and a half years ago. It wasn’t a big dramatic thing. We just wanted different stuff. She moved to Indianapolis for a job. I never heard from her again.”
