“At first, I thought it was a scam.”
“Then what?”
“We did a DNA test.”
“And?”
Robert looked at me. “She is my granddaughter.”
My legs suddenly felt weak, so I sat on a bench near the entrance.
Robert remained standing.
“How long have you known?”
He took too long to answer.
“How long?”
“For almost two years.”
“Two years?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“What happened the first time she contacted you?”
“I was confused.”
“And after the DNA test?”
“I was in shock.”
“And after you met her?”
I looked at him.
“How many times have you seen her?”
“Eight.”
“Eight?”
“Maybe nine.”
“You don’t know?”
“I know. It’s eight.”
“Eight times you came here.”
He said nothing.
“Enough times that the receptionist knows you.”
“Yes.”
“And you paid for her room.”
“She lives four hours away. I didn’t want her paying for a hotel just to see me.”
“Why here?”
“It was a neutral place.”
I laughed bitterly. “Neutral? This is where we spent our honeymoon.”
“I knew the hotel. I knew it was safe.”
“You could have chosen any hotel.”
“I know.”
“Did it ever occur to you that bringing your secret granddaughter to our honeymoon hotel might be strange?”
“Every time.”
“Then why keep doing it?”
“Because the first meeting happened here. After that, she preferred coming somewhere familiar.”
“So you’d meet her and leave?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
He almost looked offended.
“We talked.”
“About what?”
“Mike. She wanted to know whether things he did came from me.”
Robert’s voice softened.
“She asked whether I was good at math because he was terrible at it.”
His eyes filled.
“I couldn’t answer most of it.”
For a moment, I tried to understand the grief he must have carried—learning he’d had a son only after that son was already gone.
Then my anger returned.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of what you’d think. Of Helen. Of Mike. Of me.”
“You didn’t know he existed.”
“I know.”
“Then why would I blame you?”
“I didn’t know.”
“So instead you lied.”
“I kept putting it off.”
“Like Helen did.”
“She kept postponing the truth because she thought she had time,” I said. “You knew exactly what that cost her, and you did the same thing to me.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
He couldn’t answer.
I started toward the hotel.
Robert followed.
“Irene.”
I stopped.
“You haven’t called me that all night.”
“What?”
“My name.”
He looked confused.
“You keep saying you were afraid, you were shocked, you didn’t know how. Everything is about how hard this was for you.”
“Irene…”
“You found out you had a son. You found out he’d died before you ever met him. You found a granddaughter. I understand that this was devastating.”
“It was.”
“But you had a wife.”
He lowered his head.
“You had someone who had spent 40 years standing beside you. And you decided this part of your life was none of my business.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It was exactly like that.”
The next morning, someone knocked on our hotel door.
Robert was in the shower.
I opened it.
A young woman with dark hair and brown eyes stood in the hallway.
She looked nervous. “Hi.”
I knew immediately.
“Ariella?”
“Yes.”
She glanced behind me.
“Is Robert here?”
Robert came out of the bathroom.
When he saw her, he smiled. “Ariella.”
She smiled uncertainly. “I came.”
Then she looked at me.
“I’m sorry. He called me last night and asked me to come this morning and meet you.”
I asked, “You knew about me?”
Her smile disappeared. “Of course.”
I turned toward Robert.
Ariella looked between us. “What’s wrong?”
I asked her, “Did you know I didn’t know about you?”
She looked at Robert.
“You told me she knew.”
Robert closed his eyes.
Ariella stepped backward. “What?”
