AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“My guess would be the train.” Henry’s hand curls around the teacup but he makes no move to drink.
“That girl has always loved the city. Audrey would take her once or twice a year. She knows how the trains work, but to do it on her own?” Howard shakes his head as he settles in a free chair. “Then again, we shouldn’t be too surprised. Violet has always been headstrong. Just like her mother.”
And her father. I purse my lips against the urge to say it out loud.
“Why would Violet come to you, though? How does our granddaughter know you?” Gayle asks.
“Shedoesn’tknow me.”
Gayle frowns. “Then why would she go to Manhattan to see you?”
Howard stirs sugar into his teacup, the silver clanking on the china. “I think it’s obvious. He’s Violet’s father. Aren’t you, Henry?”
I guess that explains the lingering look moments ago. Howard saw it straightaway.
Gayle’s eyes widen with shock.
The wooden kitchen chair creaks as Henry leans back. “Yes, apparently I am. Something I found out twelve hours ago.”
The only sound in the kitchen for several long moments is the slow drip … drip … drip of the kitchen faucet.
Gayle studies Henry’s face. “If you don’t mind me asking, Henry, how old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Thirty-two. But that’s …” Gayle is surely doing the math in her head. “Well, that’s not possible. Violet is fifteen. That would mean …” Her voice fades, unable to utter the words. “That’s not possible, is it?” Again, she looks to her husband for an answer that explains her fears.
Howard reaches over and pats his wife’s hand. There’s no anger in his expression, though. There certainly doesn’t seem to be any doubt either. It’s as if he’s already accepted the disgraceful truth. “Audrey never told us who Violet’s father was, and she said she wouldn’t because it didn’t matter, he would never be in Violet’s life. At first, we assumed it was a married staff member she worked with at that boarding school, but then she bought the house on Acorn Way with cash, which we knew she couldn’t be making at her teaching job.” He shrugs. “I thought she must have had an affair with a student’s father. There’s plenty of wealth at that school.”
“I was her student,” Henry admits, and none of the bravado that laced his words last night—the boy who bagged his smoking hot teacher—lingers today.
Gayle makes a strangled sound, then covers her mouth with a hand. “Good God, Audrey. What did you do?”
Drip … drip… drip goes the tap as this elderly couple comes to terms with the giant skeleton that just jumped out of their deceased daughter’s closet.
Will they hate Henry for his role in this?
“How did Violet find you?” Gayle asks, her voice strained. “Did Audrey tell her about you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen or spoken to Audrey since I was a student at Hartley. Violet showed up in my building last week, pretending to be my niece. She ran almost immediately before I could question her. I suppose she was testing the waters, or maybe she was unsure? Then, last night, she came back, declared herself my daughter, and left me with a legal document that all but confirmed it.”
Gayle scratches her chin in thought. “We were moving some boxes of Audrey’s a few weeks ago. Paperwork and such that Audrey had told us to keep after she was gone. Preparing for what we knew was coming, you know? We put them all in our basement for safekeeping. Violet must have found it in there.”
“It doesn’t matter. Wherever she found it, she found it. Now she knows who her father is, and nowIknow that I have a child.” The look on his face doesn’t suggest he’s pleased about that, but Henry’s never been easy to read.
“We came here to make sure Violet made it back safely after she left us,” I say.
“We didn’t even know she’d left. With Audrey passing away, we didn’t think twice about saying yes when she asked if she could sleep over at her friend’s house, and now we find out this? Who knows where she could be!”
“Do you have a way to message her?” I ask gently. “Like, on a cell phone?” A beige receiver for the house phone hangs on the wall nearby.
Gayle’s face lights up as if she’d forgotten that option. “I can message her. Howard, where is that thing?”
“I think I saw it by the toaster. Give me a sec.” He eases out of his chair and moves gingerly toward the kitchen counter.
“Audrey bought it for us two Christmases ago. We hardly ever use it, but we’ve been keeping it on lately, especially with all that’s been going on.”
Howard ambles back. “Let’s see here … how do I … Violet taught me how to do this, but …”
