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“Are you and Daddy boyfriend/girlfriend?” she presses me. “Have you been kissing him this entire time?”
There’re folding chairs stacked next to the cubbies, so I take down two and open them.
Sitting on one, I say, “Sophie, can I have the baby?”
When she hesitates, a shiver runs up my spine.
“Please.” I pat the seat next to me. “Come sit with me.”
It takes a few seconds, but she pads toward me and gently places James Patrick into my arms.
Before she can sit, I snag her wrist tenderly. “Do you feel all right? How is your breathing?”
“It’s okay.” Her nose wrinkles. “I can breathe.”
Darragh had an elaborate turkey dinner with all the trimmings delivered and mentioned Sophie ate some stuffing for breakfast.
I’ve been on a rinse and repeat cycle with the baby since we brought him home a week ago.
Darragh has taken care of the house, all the cooking, and the laundry. All while tending to a few feeding shifts in the middle of the night.
He managed a short-term leave from the hospital. When he put his name on J.P.’s birth certificate, it led everyone there to believe he knocked up Ana Michaels, a woman who had been working as his nanny.
Sadly, the truth is much darker.
“You’re going to ignore my questions, aren’t you?” Sophie sighs, sitting down and crossing her arms. “Grown-ups always ignore kids’ questions.”
“I don’t think your father ignores your questions at all.” I have to keep in mind she’s been without her mother for so long, but Darragh hasn’t coddled her.
I want so much to just spill the truth. Who I really am, and those men outside were sent by my father.
I’m flying blind, and now I’ve been put on the spot when I’m crumbling inside.
“Sophie, my full name is Anastasia. And I know your uncles back in New York because that’s where I’m from, too.”
“Daddy said you were an old friend,” she reminds me.
“That’s right.” I’d forgotten so much else from that day.
“Were you an old girlfriend of Daddy’s?”
That would make it easy, but I can’t build a lie like this on my own. “No.”
“Why did he kiss you?”
It’s easy to explain that her father and I fell in love because that’s the truth. How do I handle the wrinkle that he was technically married at the time?
I’m not sure Sophie will factor in her parents’ prolonged separation, or that it was her mother who chose to leave and never come back.
It’s where this baby came from, and how her Uncle Cormac is involved, and explaining what happened to him that guts me to say out loud.
Seeing those men outside reminded me that life is short. My father never kept ugly truths from me. Like where Katya came from, and who her mother was to him. He was proud and unapologetic.
Feeding me harsh realities and not softened with lies made me stronger. The arrival of mercenaries at our doorstep means Sophie’s life has just changed.
“Okay.” I nod. “I’ll tell you the truth. While I’ve been staying here, your father and I have grown to like each other. In a way that we want to kiss each other.” I lean forward. “But Sophie, you come first. Always.”
“Is J.P. my brother?” she asks, her lips twitching.
