My Husband Demanded a Paternity Test over Our Daughter's Red Hair, So I Left Him an Empty House novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: I Am Not Here to Ask

Lydia's POV

Daniel knocked on the shop door at midnight.

Not the flat. The shop, downstairs, where the glass was dark and the buckets of chrysanthemums stood in rows.

I heard it from the living room, a single knuckle on the glass.

Kate was already at the window with her arms crossed.

"Porch," she said. "That's rule two."

"I know."

"Do you want me to come down?"

"Stay with June."

I put on my coat over my pajamas and went down the back stairs.

When I unlocked the door, Daniel was standing under the awning in the rain.

He had on the suit from the lunch. It was soaked through at the shoulders.

He didn't have flowers. He didn't have a stuffed animal.

"I'm not here to see June," he said. "I know it isn't the day. Five minutes, and then I'll go."

"You've got ten," I said. "It's raining."

I stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind me. We stood a careful arm's length apart.

"I went to see a man at Alum Creek," Daniel said. "Rory Maddox. He rents canoes."

I waited.

"My father isn't my father."

The rain ticked against the awning.

"Mom was pregnant when she married. She was twenty-three. She dated Rory two summers, and then she left town and married the man I grew up thinking was my dad." His voice was flat and careful. "She told Rory she lost the baby."

"Daniel."

"I look like him. I didn't see it until I stood on the dock. We have the same crooked finger." He held up his left hand. "I thought I broke it falling off a swing."

I looked at his hand.

I remembered how he had held the pen at the hospital. Every movement of that hand was in my head.

"He took off his hat, Lydia. His hair." Daniel's throat worked. "It's June's."

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