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Kinsley, Dani, and I all gasped at the same time.
He reached over and retrieved not only the letters, but a large manila envelope. He held them in his lap and stared down at them regretfully. “The money came with a price. If she accepted the money, she had to admit that you weren’t mine and agree to never pursue the claim any further, relinquishing me of any responsibility toward you.” He pulled out one of the letters. It had been discolored by time. “This first letter was returned, with your mother’s response.” He cautiously handed it to me.
I set the pillow aside and took the letter while Dani and Kinsley each took a seat next to me. They instinctively knew I would need their moral support for this. I looked at each of them and Dean, who gave me an encouraging nod. I inhaled and exhaled loudly while I carefully opened the envelope and pulled out the letter. It was a lot of legal jargon, but the gist was what Dean had said. Roger Stanton was willing to wire my mother ten thousand dollars in return for her silence, as long as she admitted that I wasn’t his daughter. That wasn’t the heart wrenching part. It was the scribbled note on the bottom from my mom.
I’ve given your offer a lot of thought. I’ve lied about a lot of things in my life and done too many things I’m ashamed of, but I won’t let Ariana be one of them. She is your daughter and no one, not even you, can take that away from me or her. So you can take your money and shove it up your snooty, high-class sphincter.”
Between wiping the tears away, I had to smile. That last line was so her. I could even hear her saying it. Dani and Kinsley chuckled too. They both knew how feisty my mother could be. But more than that, she didn’t want to make my life a lie. I honestly didn’t know she had that in her. It was the most decent thing she had ever done for me and I never knew about it.
I set the letter in my lap and faced Dean. “If she didn’t take it, why did he keep sending the letters?”
He handed me the manila envelope. “You can look through this later. My father hired a private investigator, who checked in on you every year.”
“What?” I squirmed. That made me feel so violated, but I supposed it explained how the letter always knew where to find me.
“I know it’s disconcerting, but I think he had a feeling you were his granddaughter, and while he wanted to protect me, he also felt guilty. And he didn’t want to admit he had lied and kept you from me. He kept sending letters on Christmas Eve hoping the desperate circumstances you were in would entice your mother to take the money and relinquish him from the secret he had kept, and his responsibility. My responsibility,” he sighed remorsefully. “Every year the amount grew, but she never would take it.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be happy or disgusted knowing how much that money would have helped us. “If your father knew so much about my life, why did he keep sending the letters once I became an adult or after my mother died? It makes no sense.”
“Ariana,” he took my hand as if he had been wanting to forever. He lovingly held it. It felt different, but not in a bad way. Not bad at all. “Once you became a young woman there was no denying you were his granddaughter. You looked like his beloved. She would have never allowed him to treat you so horribly. He knows that. He wanted you to have the money to assuage his guilt. And most recently, because he could no longer live with the lie and . . . he wanted to meet you.”
“What?” My mouth fell open. “Because he’s dying?”
Dean tossed his head from side to side. “I think that’s part of it.”
I sat dazed for several minutes, trying to comprehend what I had just been told. It was a lot to take in. All I could say was, “Where do we go from here?”
He enveloped my hand in his own. “That is entirely up to you.”Chapter Twenty-SevenEveryone was in a tizzy. Kinsley’s and Dani’s texts and calls had the masses storming our loft—and by masses, I meant Jonah, Whitney, my grandparents, and Brock and Brant. I’m not sure why the last two showed up, probably for the pie and coffee, and it was a good excuse to see Dani, perhaps Kinsley too, though I still worried about that situation.
But I had more pressing matters to be concerned with, like my father standing in the corner talking on the phone to his wife Sabine. Apparently, Dean had tried to make it here yesterday, on Christmas Eve, but his flight had been canceled due to weather, so he took a predawn flight this morning and would be leaving soon so he could return to spend at least Christmas night with his family. My family? That was just too weird to think about.
