Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT CLAIRE FINALLY BROKE
My mother had not betrayed my father.
She had betrayed everyone.
The fraud had been hers.
She had manipulated the accounts, then blamed my father.
Daniel discovered it.
He confronted her.
She panicked.
But she didn't kill him.
She hired someone to scare him.
The boat was sabotaged.
She expected him to survive.
He didn't.
Franklin had helped cover it up.
My father discovered the truth too late.
Then he spent the rest of his life believing he had failed his son.
The family had been destroyed by a lie.
And Claire's family had been dragged into it.
I told Claire everything.
She listened silently.
Then she walked outside.
I followed.
She stopped beneath the trees.
“My father wasn't abandoning me.”
“No.”
“He was running.”
“Yes.”
She covered her face.
For years, she had carried the belief that she wasn't worth staying for.
Now the truth was worse.
He had wanted to stay.
Someone had made him leave.
Claire began to cry.
Not quietly.
Not politely.
She folded in half, one hand against her stomach.
I held her.
“I've got you.”
“I thought he didn't love me.”
“I know.”
“I hated him.”
“I know.”
“I spent twenty years thinking I wasn't enough.”
“You were always enough.”
She cried against my chest.
I didn't try to fix it.
Some pain didn't need fixing.
It needed witnessing.
After a long time, she whispered,
“Don't leave.”
“I won't.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
She looked up.
“Even when I'm difficult?”
“Yes.”
“Even when I'm scared?”
“Yes.”
“Even when I don't know how to love you?”
I smiled.
“We'll learn.”
She kissed me.
It wasn't dramatic.
It wasn't perfect.
It was trembling and uncertain.
But it was real.
Then Emma appeared at the door.
“Are you two kissing?”
Claire laughed through her tears.
“Yes.”
“Gross.”
I laughed.
Emma pointed at me.
“But you're allowed.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded.
“I decided.”
“Decided what?”
“You're my favorite grown-up.”
I put a hand over my heart.
“I'm honored.”
Then my phone rang.
The hospital.
Claire answered.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
She listened.
Then looked at me.
“Marcus has been found.”
He was alive.
In a hospital.
Injured.
And he had asked for Claire.
We went immediately.
Marcus looked at us from the bed.
“I owe you the truth.”
Claire stood beside me.
“Then tell me.”
He swallowed.
“Your father is alive.”
Claire stopped breathing.
“What?”
“I helped him disappear.”
“Why?”
“Because the people after him were going to kill him.”
“Where is he?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“He's in Vermont.”
Claire covered her mouth.
Twenty years.
Twenty years of believing she had been abandoned.
Her father had been alive.
She looked at me.
“Take me to him.”
I nodded.
“Tomorrow.”
But before we left, Marcus grabbed my wrist.
“Vincent.”
May you like
I looked back.
“Your mother knows where he is.”
