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“Evelyn, please make us tea,” Arthur says, touching his wife’s shoulder affectionately.
She squeezes my hand, and her lips curve in sympathy I don’t want before she walks down the long corridor to the kitchen.
“Come on,” Arthur says, gesturing to the lounge.
I go with him and take a seat on the sofa, turning my head around the old-fashioned decor I’ve seen so often but that looks different somehow. The brass poker by the open fire doesn’t seem to shine. The patterned carpet looks worn. The picture frames look dated.
One picture in the bay window catches my attention. I walk over and pick it up, staring at my father and Arthur, and I ask him again, “Did you know?”
“I knew.” He sits into his high-back chair and crosses his legs.
“I didn’t bid,” I tell him.
He looks relieved. “I think that was a sensible decision.”
I set the picture back down and stare out at the front lawn where Teddy and I used to play. Where I spent so many happy hours when my father brought me to visit. “That’s not why. I didn’t bid, because my father isn’t the man I thought he was.”
Evelyn brings in tea and biscuits, before heading out of the room again.
“He had an affair, Dayna. I know how much that must disappoint you—”
“Don’t you dare defend him.” I walk to stand in front of the fire, welcoming the warmth that seeps into my cold bones as I stare him down.
“Sit down,” he says authoritatively, as if I’m still the little girl who played hopscotch with his son.
I do as he tells me, taking a cup of tea from the coffee table and wrapping my hands around it. “He lied to me all my life. He knew I hated my mother. He knew I thought it was her who had an affair, and he never admitted it. Not once. Never even suggested she was right to leave. How could he do that? How could he let me think so badly of her?” I find myself sniffing even though I have no tears left to shed.
“Dayna, look at you. It’s not worth all this. It’s not worth being this upset.”
“How can you say that?”
He sighs, his eyes heavy. “People make mistakes. That’s life. People have made bigger mistakes than your father. You know him. He loved you.”
“He lied to me. All those years.” I think of Clark. He didn’t want to lie to me. That’s why he told me. I shake him out of my head. “Arthur, did you know how much Harold Layton hated my father?”
He sits up straighter and swallows deeply. “He was hurt; his pride was dented. Of course he disliked your father.”
There’s something about the way he sits, the way he looks at me, that troubles me.
“How did you find out about the affair?” he asks.
I watch him shuffle awkwardly in his seat. “Clark told me. And it’s not the only thing he told me.” I stare into my cup, trying to find my next words. “The explosion. It wasn’t just Caspar. It was Harold, too.”
I wait for a reaction, but it doesn’t come. And there’s only one possible explanation for why. My jaw drops open. “You knew.”
He reaches for his cup from the table and sits back, taking a sip. “I knew.”
I shake my head. “H-how? How could you know? Why didn’t you tell me? When did you find out?” I stand again, pacing the floor. “You knew and you didn’t tell me? Why?”
“Dayna, I knew, and your father knew.”
My head pounds with confusion. “Why have you let me think it was Caspar?”
“It was Caspar. And there was no proof, Dayna, you know that; we’ve been over this so many times. There was no point in you knowing. There was nothing you could do to change things. If Caspar hadn’t been so proud of himself, you might never have known about his part in it either.”
I hold my hands across my mouth, staring at a man I’ve considered a friend, a father figure. A man I don’t know at all. “You wouldn’t have told me? Can you hear yourself?”
“What would have been the benefit? So you could live your life with the level of hatred you have now?”
