Chapter 3
Hadley laughed.
It was one sharp, unbelieving sound. Then she looked at Kellan as if she had never seen his face before.
"Your what?"
"I found out in April," he said.
"No. You said his dad died."
"The man who raised him died. Ainsley contacted me in March after Tobin started asking questions. We did a DNA test."
He reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a white envelope.
I hated that he had prepared for this moment. While I washed Mom's hair over a hospice basin, he had ordered a test, opened the result, and decided what the rest of us were allowed to know.
I did not touch the envelope.
"How long have you known for certain?"
"Since April seventeenth."
Six months and one day.
Hadley grabbed the banister. "You kept a son secret for six months?"
"I was trying to understand what being his father meant before I changed your lives."
"You already changed them. We just weren't invited."
Kellan flinched, but Hadley was only getting started.
"Is that why you kept saying you finally understood boys? Is that why you took him to the Phillies game when you told me you had a band workshop?"
"How do you know about that?"
"Your stupid notebook."
He glanced toward it, calculating what else she might have read.
Hadley saw him do it.
"God, you're still checking what we know."
"I'm trying to keep this from getting uglier."
"Too late."
Her voice cracked. She pressed her lips together, furious at the weakness.
Kellan softened immediately and held out a hand.
"Birdie, come here."
It was the nickname he had given her when she was six and missing both front teeth. He had used it the day he adopted her, after the judge asked if she understood that Kellan would legally become her father.
She slapped his hand away.
"Don't call me that."
"You are still my daughter. Nothing about Tobin changes that."
"You missed Grandma's funeral because he called you Dad."
"That is not why."
"Then why? Because he's a boy? Because he's yours for real?"
"Hadley. Stop."
"What the hell have I been for ten years? Practice?"
The word hung there.
Kellan's face drained. "Never."
Hadley shoved past me and ran upstairs. Her bedroom door slammed, opened again, then slammed harder.
Kellan started after her.
I blocked the stairs.
"Leave her alone."
"She thinks I don't love her."
"She thinks that because of what you did, not because I failed to explain it nicely enough."
"I need to talk to her."
"You need to pack a bag."
He stared at me.
"This is my house too."
"Then you can come back after we discuss it with attorneys. Tonight, you leave."
"You're throwing me out on the day of your mother's funeral?"
The nerve of that question hit me so hard I felt almost calm.
"You left first. I'm just refusing to pretend you came back the same man."
He lowered his voice. "You are in shock. You have been awake for days. Let's not make a permanent decision in the worst hour of your life."
There it was again. Concern shaped into a leash.
I picked up my phone and called Quentin.
"Can you come over?"
Kellan's shoulders went rigid. "Do not bring your brother into our marriage."
"You brought Ainsley, Tobin, and our daughter into it. Quentin is just helping you find the door."
He paced to the window and back.
"There was no affair. Ainsley and I have not been together since college. I found out I had a child. I tried to do the decent thing."
"The decent thing had six months to tell me its name."
"Your mother was dying. Every time I tried, there was another scan, another medication, another night you didn't come home."
"So you waited until she died."
"I waited until you could survive it."
Anger surged through me so fast my hands went numb.
"Do not take credit for my survival."
He stopped pacing.
"I am not your patient, Kellan. Hadley is not your accomplice. And my mother's cancer was not a permission slip."
Footsteps creaked above us. Hadley was sitting somewhere near the top of the stairs, listening.
I raised my voice so she would hear the next part.
"You do not get to call control protection just because you used a gentle voice."
Quentin arrived twelve minutes later. He came in wet from the rain, took one look at my face, and asked Kellan which suitcase he wanted.
"This is none of your business," Kellan said.
Quentin wiped rain from his eyebrow. "My sister asked me to stand here. Standing here is my business."
No threats. No shouting. Kellan had been preparing himself to look reasonable beside an angry brother. Quentin denied him the performance.
Kellan packed enough clothes for three nights.
At the front door, he looked up at Hadley. She had come halfway down the stairs in sweatpants, mascara washed into gray streaks beneath her eyes.
"I love you," he said.
She hugged herself tighter.
"Did you tell him that you loved me?"
"Tobin knows about you."
"That's not what I asked."
Kellan opened his mouth, but whatever answer he had prepared did not fit.
Hadley's chin trembled.
"Go be his dad. You're really good at it when nobody else can see you."
He left with the suitcase.
The moment the door closed, Hadley slid down the wall. I sat on the floor beside her. She would not let me hold her, but she hooked one finger through the sleeve of my dress and kept it there.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table.
A message request had arrived from Ainsley Keene.
Tamsin, Kellan is on his way here. Before he tells you anything else, you should know he gave Tobin and me a completely different version of your marriage.