Chapter 39
Grace
I feel like someone just poured acid all over my body. Every inch of me burns. My vision goes wavy, like I'm staring at a mirage. My stomach roils and my shaky knees threaten to give way.
My husband has a child. A little girl who was born before I ever met him. A little girl who was god-knows-where while I fell in love with him and married him and got mad at him and kicked him out of our home. While we were in this little suburb, bumbling our way toward this moment in time, a tiny human sharing Daniel’s DNA was taking her first steps, learning to ride a bike, mastering her ABCs in some other parallel universe. It’s surreal.
I need a minute to compute all that.
“Grace?” I blink out of my haze and my eyes move to his face. “There’s more…”
My knees buckle and I sag against the counter behind me.
With concern on his face, Daniel rushes over to me. Bracing an arm around my shoulder, he leads me to the kitchen table. I drop into a chair and he falls to his knees in front of me. “Hey…Are you okay?” He touches my face.
I’m not okay. My head feels light and my gut churns like I could hurl that red wine right back up. But he said that there’s more and I need to know what it is. “What else do you have to tell me?” I question, the lilt in my voice, shaky and uncertain.
Daniel drags in a long breath and his eyes fall to my lap. “Brittany doesn’t want her.”
My head spins as he says those words. “What?”
He shrugs helplessly. “She claims that she’s an actress and being a mother is getting in the way.” He finally looks up at me. “I have to take my daughter, Grace. If I don’t, Brittany will do something stupid like put her up for adoption or leave her in foster care.”
At those words, the first sob comes bursting out of my chest. “My god!”
“After Brittany had the baby, she told everyone that she had given her up for adoption. That was a lie. The child was staying with her aunt the whole time while she ran around trying to be the next movie starlet. But her aunt just died and she has nowhere to leave the kid. My daughter has nowhere to go.”
Realization pours over me. That child that Lily thought might have been Jakob’s, that child that Brittany supposedly gave up for adoption…she was Daniel’s all along.
I’m shaking violently at his words. I feel like all my brain synapses have fried out.
“Grace…” He tries to be soothing but he himself is falling apart. How could a woman be so cruel to her own child? I would give anything to be allowed the gift of another pregnancy. Yet, here is this Brittany-woman, lucky enough to have a child and she wants to give her away.
“Shit!” All I can do is repeat the word over and over, shaking my head as warm, salty tears roll over my cheeks. “Shit shit shit!” Disbelief sweeps through me.
His voice goes gravelly as he runs his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I promised I wouldn’t hurt you again. And here I am breaking your heart all over again. But we need to take that little girl, baby. I’m so sorry. I know it’s not what you want but we need to take her…”
Daniel continues to stare at me, trying to work out what the hell I’m thinking.
“Of course we’ll take her,” I whisper. “Of course we will.”
He gasps hard. “Are you sure?” He’s no doubt shocked at my response.
“Daniel – she’s your blood. Sebastian’s big sister. You think I would let her end up in foster care?”
I think of Lily. She doesn't have the same mother as Faith and me but she is my sister in every way that counts and I would never turn her away if she needed me. So how could I turn Sebastian's sister away?
He shakes his head. “This is a big responsibility, Grace. Another child. An eight-year-old. We’re strangers to her. She’s going to have questions. What if she doesn’t like us? And I just quit my job. How are we going to afford this? This is insane!”
“From the moment I got pregnant with Sebastian, all I’ve wanted was to grow our family. When I realized that I probably couldn’t get pregnant again, I didn’t see a way to make that dream a reality. But now, it turns out that you have a daughter. And she needs us. I am ready and willing and excited to open up my home and my heart to her.”
Even though he knows what we have to do, he genuinely seems terrified about taking up the role of this girl's father. I slide my fingers into his hair, letting them drag over his cheek to his chin. “We’ve been through the ‘for worse’ part, babe. Everything from here on out, is ‘for better’.”
He rises slowly and pulls me to my feet. His arms loop around my waist and his face tells me that he still can’t believe what’s happening. “I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he whispers, pressing his lips to my forehead.
"Because you didn't get trichomoniasis from Brittany?" I tease just to lighten the mood.
"You're an asshole." He chuckles, squeezing me tight.
“Just like you.” I grin.
Putting a soft kiss in my hair, he whispers, “No – you’re an angel. My angel.”