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What if she hadn’t been in my life?
What if I’d told Kane and he’d taken her from me?
She was his.
But she was mine too.
What I couldn’t get my head around was that Alma had lied to me. How many times over how many years had she lied to me?
And yet . . . because of her lies, I’d had Penelope.
Which meant Kane hadn’t.
I brushed the hair back from Penelope’s forehead. She groaned, but didn’t wake.
Had she needed him?
I deluded myself into thinking I’d saved someone else. I’d saved my daughter from abuse and unhappiness.
The truth was she’d saved me.
I should care that she’d come to be mine because of a lie, but I couldn’t.
And the part of me that cared for Kane flooded with guilt.
I cared for Kane.
I pressed my head farther into the pillow, unable to take my eyes off Penelope.
I’d hated him so long for what he’d done to Alma—or what I thought he’d done. But I’d spent twenty-one years looking at his mirror image. And I loved her more than anything.
Had I transferred some of that love to him? Was that why I’d softened toward him since I’d been back in New York?
Or was it because he’d charmed me?
I stroked Penelope’s hair.
What if it was his turn to have her?
If I explained to her why I’d never told her who her father was, she might understand. She might forgive me.
I’d been lied to also. And I’d truly believed Kane was a danger to her.
But I had no excuse for why I’d never revealed I wasn’t her biological mother.
And that . . . I didn’t want to tell her.
In the early years, I’d struggled with what to do. Should I tell her? Would it affect her? Affect our relationship?
As time went on and Alma showed zero interest in Penelope, there was no need to be honest. What would it accomplish? Penelope was a curious child. She would’ve wondered why her biological mother had nothing to do with her.
We’d managed to avoid Kane . . . to plan holidays and visits in ways where we wouldn’t see him. In my mind, I realized there was a possibility the two of them would meet one day. It seemed like a far off, distant, and unlikely place.
I’d settled into a false sense of security that Penelope would never know. That I wouldn’t have to tell her the truth.
Iwouldn’ttell her what Alma had almost done.
I’d already turned my daughter’s world upside down. But confessing that Alma was her mother? It would rattle her already crumbling foundation.
