“Until?”
“Until three years ago,” he said. “She called me. Out of nowhere. On a Tuesday afternoon. I was at work.”
He swallowed hard.
“She told me she had a daughter. My daughter. She’d been pregnant when we broke up, but she didn’t find out until after she’d moved. And she decided not to tell me. She said she didn’t want me to feel trapped. She wanted to do it by herself.”
“And you just believed her?” I said.
“Not right away. We did a DNA test. A real one, through a lab.” He looked down at his hands. “Lily was mine. Ninety-nine point nine percent.”
I gripped the chair harder.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to,” Ethan said. “I swear, Claire. I wanted to tell you that same night. But Megan was sick. Really sick. She had ovarian cancer. Stage four. She found out a month before she called me.” His voice cracked. “That’s why she called. She wanted Lily to know her father. Before…”
He didn’t finish.
“So you told my father instead?” I said.
Ethan glanced at Dad.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Ethan said. “I was falling apart. Robert was the only person I could think of. He suggested waiting a little. Until things settled down.”
Dad stepped forward.
“I thought a few weeks wouldn’t hurt anyone,” he said quietly.
“Three years, Dad,” I said. “You waited three years!”
Neither of them answered.
“Where’s Megan now?” I asked.
Ethan’s face changed.
“She passed away,” he said. “Two years ago. In March.”
