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A mechanical voice blared from the phone on the hall table. “Call from Knowles Attorney at Law. Call from Knowles Attorney at Law.”
He stopped. She slid from his arms. They stared at each other.
“You’d better take it,” Grace said, her voice strained, her heart doing a slow, hard pound in her chest. She watched her husband’s face as he spoke with the lawyer, his eyes on hers as he listened.
“I understand. So it’s conclusive.” He fidgeted with the handheld unit, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes swerving around the room. “Thanks. Yes. Please fax the results to my office as soon as you can.” He hung up, coming toward her, pulling her into his arms, his body pressed to hers. “The test results prove that Emma is my daughter. I can’t believe this. I have a daughter… How could I have a daughter?”
A chill ran down Grace’s spine. He said the words with a reverence she hadn’t heard from him before. “You mean you have a daughter.”
“I can’t believe it,” he said again, as if he hadn’t heard her, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “But deep down, I knew by the spot of color in her left eye. I saw it. Mom had the same spot, the same yellow area in her iris.”
Grace stepped out of his arms. “You were sure the day we saw the video, but you didn’t tell me. You let me hope that there might be a chance that the DNA test was wrong. How could you?” she demanded.
He glanced at her, his expression gentle. “I wanted to protect you as long as I could. But, yes, I knew that Emma was my daughter. I don’t know how it could have happened, but it did.”
Anger flooded her at his selfish words. “How can you stand there and tell me you don’t know how it happened?” All these nights, he hadn’t been sitting in his office worried about her. He’d been thinking about his daughter and what that would mean to him. All the while, Grace had been home alone trying to make sense of what was going on and missing him with her whole heart.
“What do you mean?” he asked startled.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Aidan. You made this happen by having sex with this woman. How can you stand there and pretend this was fate when you broke our marriage vows?” Grace demanded, so angry she could barely breathe. “Stop lying to yourself,” she said as she stomped upstairs, anger filling her mind and soul with the stark realization that her marriage was over.
She turned at the top of the stairs to face him where he stood at the bottom looking up at her. “You had your fling and now you have your child. Congratulations.” With that she went into the guest bedroom and slammed the door. Throwing herself on the bed she cried until there were no tears left.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, Grace awoke to the sound of the phone ringing, once again the stupid, mechanical voice announcing the caller, only this time, it was her friend Cecilia’s name. Grace didn’t have a clue whether they’d shown up last night or not. She hadn’t been able to hear anything over her tears.
Her whole life had been tossed, and that was all she could think about. She assumed that Aidan had dealt with dinner, but she couldn’t bring herself to care what he did. She owed her friends an apology, but she couldn’t do it right now. Her head ached, her mouth was dry and her whole body felt numb.
She heard Aidan’s voice, his consoling tone and his offer to have her call Cecilia back when she got up. But she wasn’t getting up for a very long time. Her life in this house was over. The man she’d thought she knew didn’t exist anymore. And instead, she was faced with the fact that her husband was completely absorbed with his present circumstances, leaving her to work out her feelings toward him alone, to cope with the loss of her dream all over again.
