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“No way. That did not happen.” He would have remembered if they had slept together. No way could he have forgotten sleeping with Sera Lovely; she was unforgettable.
“You were drunk at a Christmas party, and it happened on the couch. The couch you hate and don’t even sit on.” She bit her lip, and her nails dug in deeper.
Nothing came to him, nothing at all. His divorce had been bad and long. He couldn’t remember a Christmas where he and Veronica weren’t together. Shaking his head, he had no clear idea of when Sera was referring to.
“If I hated it so much, I would get rid of it. I’ve always liked that couch. It brings character to a boring office.”
When everyone had boring uncomfortable chairs to sit on, he offered his clients a place to relax, to not feel like being in his office was worse than going to the dentist for a root canal. His hope was that his clients would have a better experience because of it.
He turned to her wall of pictures again. One caught his eyes instantly because he had seen it before. It was him lying on the floor as an infant, smiling at the camera, but this picture was brighter, and the blanket was yellow and not blue.
Pulling it off the wall, he looked at it closer, as if holding the photo would tell him more about it. “Why didn’t you believe the paternity test results I sent you?”
“They had no bearing on the paternity test. You had to take it and get the results anyway.” She was looking at the picture he held. She had seen all of his pictures in his mother’s living room. This was almost an exact copy of that photo. Why was it even here?
“Why didn’t you believe the test results?” he asked again, sitting on the end of the bed, unable to look away from the picture.
“Because you got me pregnant a year after the tests were taken,” she admitted what he couldn’t bring himself to believe.
“Violet is mine? Why didn’t you tell me? Didn’t you think I deserved to know?” He looked at the familiar blue eyes, the dark hair. His daughter, a daughter he had been denied her entire life.
“You were still married and were working on staying married. I was still married also. And you didn’t remember that night, none of it.” Her words came out in an anguished rush, but her explanation sounded legitimate.
“And now, more recently? After I had met her? After I had fallen in love with you?” He tried not to be hurt or angry about what she had done, but it was hard.
“She’s been my baby for all these years, and I wasn’t ready to share her. But I did feel very guilty about it. I didn’t know if you would believe me.” She walked away from him finally, no longer looking at the picture in his hands.
His eyes went to the wall and looked for more pictures of Violet, of his daughter. “When’s her birthday?”
“September twenty-fourth. She was born in the evening. It was an easy birth, and she was a great baby. Never any trouble.” Sera sat on the bed.
“I have a daughter,” he said the words out loud, testing them because it was hard to believe the words were true.
“Harrison, can I see the picture you’re holding?” she asked, pulling his attention away from the wall with his daughter’s pictures on it. He could pick out Violet in another and another as she grew up. His daughter was downstairs watching a movie with her sisters, completely unaware of who he was.
Taking the picture from him, she worked to take the picture from the frame. Once out, she handed it back to him. The photo felt delicate out of the frame. He wanted to put it back in so it would be safe again. So he wouldn’t destroy it by accident.
“Look at the back,” she whispered.
Turning it over, he read the words that made no sense to him. “Emmaline, nine months.”
“Emmaline is yours also. We met in college, during a class on Shakespeare. You dropped the class after two meetings. But after that second class, we slept together. I got pregnant. At that time, I had no idea who you were and was never able to find you again. I tried that time, but failed,” she admitted.
“I remember you,” he said, looking at the woman on the bed. He had gone to the wrong class twice, then couldn’t remember where it had been. Not that he had tried, really. The only good thing about that class had been the girl who’d sat next to him. Unfortunately, he had been nineteen and had gotten what he wanted from her, and she had been mostly forgotten. All these years later, he couldn’t remember anything but her first name: Sara. Then he had met Veronica and stopped thinking about her completely. Until right now.
“I don’t expect you to remember me. It was one time, and that’s okay. I know you’ll want paternity tests for both of them, and I am okay with that as well. You deserve to know them, but just don’t take them from me. They’re my life.” Her voice cracked with her words. She was scared he would do just that. That he would take the children she had raised on her own.
Tossing the picture on the bed, he squatted down and took her hands. “I will never take your kids from you, Sera, but I want to be a part of their lives. I want to be a part of your life. I was waiting for the lawsuit to be over before I asked you to move in with me, but now I think I’ll demand it. You and the girls.”
“You don’t have to say that, Harrison. I won’t stop you from seeing your kids, so you don’t have to make promises you can’t keep. And I have the big girls to think about.” Her eyes wouldn’t meet his.
His heart fell at her words. She was truly scared that he’d take the girls from her. He wanted more than her—their kids; he wanted her. Before he could tell her that, there was a knock on the door. A little voice said, “Mommy, supper’s ready.”
“Come in, baby girl.” Sera’s voice had gone from barely there with pain to light and happy in an instant.
Violet immediately bounded into the room. Her jeans were dirty, her pink shirt said ‘princess’ on it, and her feet were bare. She threw herself into Sera’s arms as if she knew her mom needed a hug from her. Sera’s arms went around her, and she kissed the dark curly hair that looked like it needed brushing.
“Mommy, you are sad. Why are you so sad?” the girl said, even if her mom was smiling.
