A Secret in Her Father's House, A Pregnancy Neither Can Hide novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: What Janice Saw

Janice was waiting at the kitchen door before they reached the top of the lawn.

She had dressed.

She had put on her linen blouse and her reading glasses on their chain, and she held a mug of coffee in both hands.

She did not look like a woman who had slept.

"Come in," she said. "Both of you."

Alana's mouth went dry.

She had rehearsed this for years, and none of the rehearsals had been right.

Henrik took his hand from her waist.

She felt the loss of it, and then she reached out and took it back.

She laced her fingers through his in the open door, in plain light, in front of her mother.

Janice's eyes went to their hands and stayed there.

"Sit," she said.

Alana did not sit.

Henrik did not sit either.

"I saw you from the window at four," Janice said. "I thought I was imagining it. I stood there until the sky went grey, and I watched you come up from the boat."

"Mom."

"I would like to hear someone say it. I am not going to say it for you."

Alana stood straight.

She had stood like this to fire a contractor and to end an engagement, and she found that it was easier now than either.

"It's Henrik's baby," she said. "It was never Trenton's. I told you it was, because I was afraid of you, and because I didn't want to say it in front of him. I'm sorry I lied."

The coffee mug shook once in Janice's hands.

"How long?"

"Since the second night I was here," Henrik said.

"You told me she was sleeping."

"She was. After."

Janice made a short sound.

"You are fifty-four years old."

"Yes."

"She is your daughter. She is your own child, and I handed her to you every summer and every Christmas and thought, whatever else he is, he is safe."

"I know."

"Do you? Do you know?" Her voice rose for the first time. "You let me drive her away when she was nine. You stood there. I thought, he will come after us. I waited a month for you to call and say bring her back."

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