Chapter 2 - Sister, Not Lover
Marion's dinner party felt unreal. Crystal glasses clinked. People laughed. Music played softly. Nolan stood near the fireplace entertaining my coworkers with some funny story. Everyone loved him. I watched him and wondered how a person could look exactly the same after becoming a complete stranger.
My clutch never left my lap.
Eventually Marion sat beside me. "Talia, you haven't been yourself all night."
"Just a headache."
She gave me the look she used on employees hiding problems in meetings. "Whatever's bothering you, ask questions before you make assumptions."
I almost laughed. She had no idea how appropriate that was.
A few minutes later I locked myself in the powder room and opened the clutch. My hands trembled unfolding the first letter.
Nolan, thank you again for the money. Owen asked about you all week. He drew another picture for you. Please don't worry about me. Your sister, Brenna.
I froze. Sister? I read it again. Your sister. Not lover. Not mistress. Sister.
I pulled another letter, then another. All the same story — Owen missing Uncle Nolan, Brenna thanking him for help with expenses, references to medical appointments, medication, hospital visits.
The legal document looked different now too. Nolan wasn't trying to become Owen's father. He was being asked to become his guardian if something happened to Brenna.
Someone knocked on the bathroom door. I shoved everything back into my purse. The relief I felt was complicated. Maybe Nolan wasn't cheating. But he'd still hidden an entire family from me.
I barely slept that night, rehearsing a hundred ways to confront him while he slept peacefully beside me.
By sunrise I'd decided. I made coffee, set two mugs on the counter. Nolan entered humming. The moment he saw my face, he stopped.
"You didn't sleep."
"Sit down."
He did. I placed the plastic package between us. All the color left his face.
"Talia..."
"Who is Brenna?"
He stared at the bundle, then closed his eyes. "My sister."
I almost laughed from disbelief. "You don't have a sister."
"Yes. I do." He rubbed both hands over his face. "My half sister."
I said nothing.
"My father left my mother when I was four," he continued. "He started another family two states away. Brenna is his daughter from that marriage."
"And Owen?"
"Her son."
"How old?"
"Six."
"How long have you known about them?"
"A little over a year."
"And you never thought your wife should know?"
"Talia—"
"Answer me."
"Brenna contacted me after her mother died. Her mother told her the truth about our father before she passed. Brenna found me afterward."
I remembered his mysterious trips. "The business trips?"
He looked down. "Brenna lives in that town."
"And the money?"
"I've been helping them."
"With what?"
He hesitated. "Brenna is sick."
The anger inside me shifted. "What do you mean, sick?"
"She has a condition that can be managed, but it isn't going away. Some months are better than others." He pointed to the guardianship papers. "A few weeks ago she asked if I'd become Owen's legal guardian if anything happened to her."
I pushed my chair back and stood. "You knew what my father did to my family."
He looked up.
"You knew what secrets did to my mother."
"I know."
"And you still hid this from me for over a year?"
"I wanted to tell you."
"When?"
"I kept waiting."
"For what?"
"For things to get easier."
I laughed bitterly. "Secrets don't get easier, Nolan."
He lowered his head. "At first I thought I should get to know Brenna before involving you. I didn't even know if she was really my sister."
"And after you confirmed it?"
"Then she got sick."
"So?"
"I thought I could introduce you when things were more stable."
"But they never got stable."
"No."
"So you kept lying."
His face tightened. "I never lied about loving you."
"No. You just invented fake work trips and hid letters under our bed."
He flinched. Then he said something I hadn't expected. "I was ashamed."
"Of Brenna?"
"No." He shook his head quickly. "Of my father."
He stared at his hands. "I spent my whole childhood watching what that man did to my mother. He lied. He abandoned us. He built another family and pretended we didn't exist." His voice cracked slightly. "When Brenna contacted me, suddenly I was connected to that part of him again."
"You're not responsible for what your father did."
"I know that logically." He looked at me. "But I kept thinking if I told you I had a secret half sister and a nephew you'd never heard of, you'd look at me and see him."
My anger didn't disappear. In some ways, his explanation made things worse. "So instead of trusting me, you did the exact thing you were afraid of."
He swallowed. "What?"
"You hid an entire family from your wife."
His face fell. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Finally he nodded. "That's not completely fair." Then he sighed. "But it's not completely wrong either."
I sat down again. "I was going to tell you," he whispered. "Every month I promised myself this would be the month."
"But?"
"But then Brenna asked about guardianship." He looked terrified. "What if you said no? What if you told me you didn't want the responsibility of raising a six-year-old who wasn't ours? What if I had to choose between my marriage and protecting Owen?"
My chest tightened. "So you decided for me instead."
Nolan couldn't answer.
That hurt more than anything. I'd spent the night before preparing to discover an affair. I'd imagined lipstick, hotel receipts, a second phone, divorce papers.
Instead I'd discovered something stranger. My husband wasn't hiding another romance. He was hiding his fear. Fear that I wouldn't accept his sister. Fear that I wouldn't accept Owen. Fear that he'd inherited something ugly from the father who abandoned him.
And that fear had made him shut me out.
I grabbed my car keys.
"Talia, where are you going?"
May you like
I didn't answer. Because for once, I didn't want Nolan's explanation.
I wanted Brenna's.
