Chapter 4: What Claire Left Behind
The taxi was still there.
An old sedan, engine idling, the driver a heavyset man in his sixties with a cardboard air freshener shaped like a pine tree swinging from the mirror.
He rolled down his window when Daniel approached.
"You the father?" the man asked.
"Yes," Daniel said.
The word came out without hesitation, which surprised him.
The driver reached into the passenger seat and lifted a canvas bag — the reusable kind, the kind sold at grocery checkouts.
He held it out through the window.
"The woman gave me this before she passed out.
Said if she didn't wake up, I was to make sure the little one got it to the father." He paused.
"I didn't know she wasn't going to wake up.
I thought she meant from the car ride."
Daniel took the bag.
Inside: a sealed envelope with his name on it in handwriting he recognized immediately.
A small notebook.
A hospital bracelet.
And a folded legal document held together with a rubber band.
"Do you know where she is now?" Daniel asked.
"Claire.
The mother."
The driver looked at his steering wheel.
"The ambulance came about an hour after I left with the kids.
Neighbor called it in.
That's all I know."
Daniel pulled out his phone with one hand, the bag still in the other.
Lily was standing beside him on the pavement, Rose balanced on her hip, both of them watching him with the same expression — patient, careful, waiting to see what kind of man he would turn out to be.
He called his assistant first.
"Marcus.
I need you to find out which hospital received a woman named Claire Ashford within the last two hours.
Yes, now.
I'll wait."
He looked down at Lily while the line went quiet.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
Lily considered this seriously.
"Rose is.
She had her last bottle at breakfast."
"How old is Rose?"
"Fourteen months."
Daniel did the math without meaning to.
Fourteen months ago he had been in Singapore closing a deal that had made the front page of three financial newspapers.
He had not known.
He had not been told.
"Okay," he said.
"We're going to get Rose something to eat.
And then I'm going to make some calls.
Is that all right?"
Lily nodded.
"Can I ask you something?" he said.
"Yes."
"How old are you, Lily?"
"Six," she said.
"Seven in October."
He nodded slowly.
Seven years ago.
The hospital room.
Claire, twenty-four years old, frightened and fierce in equal measure, telling him she could manage on her own, that she didn't need anything from him, that she just needed him to go.
He had gone.
He had told himself it was what she wanted.
Marcus came back on the line.
"St.
Catherine's.
She was admitted ninety minutes ago.
They're not releasing information over the phone."
"I'll go in person." He looked at his driver, who had followed at a discreet distance.
"James, can you take us to St.
Catherine's?"
"Of course, sir."
He opened the rear door for Lily.
She climbed in carefully, settling Rose on her lap, and then looked up at him before he closed the door.
"Is Mama going to be okay?" she asked.
He didn't lie to her.
He didn't reassure her with words he couldn't back up.
"I'm going to find out," he said.
"I promise."
He got in beside her and opened the envelope.
Claire's handwriting was small and precise, the letters slightly slanted to the right the way they always had been.
*Daniel,*
*If Lily found you, then I'm not able to explain this myself.
So I'll do it here.*
*I lied to you.
Not about everything.
But about the most important thing.*
*I told you I didn't want you involved.
That wasn't true.
I was told — and I believed it — that you already knew about the pregnancy and had chosen to walk away.
I was shown messages.
I was shown a letter with your signature.
I believed them because I was twenty-four and frightened and it was easier to be angry at you than to keep hoping.*
*I found out the truth eight months ago.
By then Rose was already here and I didn't know how to begin.*
*The person who showed me those messages was Victoria.*
He stopped reading.
The car moved through the city.
Rose made a small sound against Lily's shoulder.
Outside the window, the wedding venue shrank in the rearview mirror.
He read the line again.
*The person who showed me those messages was Victoria.*
May you like
He turned to the next page.
And his hands, for the second time that day, went completely still.
