My Husband Demanded a Paternity Test over Our Daughter's Red Hair, So I Left Him an Empty House novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: What His Father Wrote

The aunt would not sit until Kate put a chair under her.

She set the pie box on my kitchen table and kept the envelope against her chest.

"My brother gave me this four years ago," she said. "The week before he died. He told me to give it to Daniel when Daniel had a child."

"Four years," Daniel said.

"You had June. I waited for the right day." She looked at the cut on his hand, and the dish towel, and then at me, and her face went soft. "I think it's today."

She put the envelope in his hands.

He turned it over.

The flap had been sealed with tape, and the tape had gone brown.

"Do you want us to go?" I said.

"No."

He said it at once.

"Stay," he said. "Please. I don't think I can do this by myself."

Kate took the aunt by the elbow and steered her toward the living room, whispering about tea.

I stayed.

I pulled my chair around the corner of the table so that my knee was an inch from his.

Daniel slid his thumb under the tape and took out two sheets, written on both sides in blue ink.

His mouth moved on the first line. Then he started to read aloud, because he couldn't make himself read it silently.

"Daniel. If you're reading this, you have a child of your own. I am dead and I can't be embarrassed, so here it is."

His voice cracked on the next sentence, and he waited, and started again.

"I am not your blood father. I have known since the day before I married your mother."

I put my hand flat on the table, next to his.

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