Chapter 6: What Six Years Looks Like
The hotel room was quiet when I arrived.
Evelyn had left the hallway light on.
Both boys were asleep in the far bed — Thomas on his back with one arm flung wide, Daniel curled on his side facing the wall, his dark hair falling across his forehead exactly the way mine did when I slept, or so I had been told.
I stood at the foot of the bed for longer than I meant to.
Evelyn was sitting at the small table near the window with a cup of tea that had gone cold.
She watched me look at the boys and didn't say anything until I finally pulled out the other chair and sat down.
"Tell me," she said.
I told her everything.
The first letter, the forged signature, the solicitor Eleanor had used to match my handwriting.
The second letter from Gerald Marsh.
The anonymous foundation payment to Portland.
All of it, in the order I had learned it, without softening any of it.
Evelyn listened without interrupting.
Her hands were wrapped around the cold cup.
By the time I finished, she had set it down on the table and was looking at the window.
"I thought about contacting you," she said.
"More than once.
In the first year, especially.
I drafted messages I never sent."
"What stopped you?"
"The letter from the attorney said my visa renewal could be challenged if I made contact or pursued paternity claims.
I had just had two premature babies.
They were in the NICU for eleven days." She paused.
"I couldn't risk it.
I couldn't risk them."
"Evelyn—"
"I'm not telling you that so you feel worse." She looked at me directly.
"I'm telling you because you asked what stopped me, and that's the answer.
I made the only choice I could make with what I had."
I looked at the two small shapes in the bed.
Eleven days in the NICU.
Alone.
"Where were you flying today?" I asked.
"Before the delay."
"Atlanta.
I was offered a coordinating position with a nonprofit there.
We were going to start over again." She almost smiled.
"We've started over a few times."
"How many times?"
"Portland first.
Then Denver.
Denver didn't work out.
Then back to Chicago for eight months, which felt like a mistake the whole time.
Then Portland again.
Now Atlanta." She paused.
"I've been careful never to be anywhere near your properties."
That landed harder than she probably intended it to.
"I want to fix this," I said.
"I don't know exactly what that looks like yet.
But I need you to know that I'm not walking away again.
I didn't walk away the first time — that was taken from me.
And I'm not going to let it happen again."
Evelyn was quiet for a moment.
"Marcus, I believe you," she said.
"But I need you to understand something.
Those boys don't know who you are.
To them, right now, you're a man their mother spoke to in an airport.
Whatever you want to build with them — it has to be built slowly.
On their terms."
"I know."
"Daniel is cautious.
He watches people for a long time before he trusts them.
Thomas will talk to anyone, but he remembers everything, and if you say something you don't mean, he will bring it up six months later at the worst possible moment."
I almost laughed.
"He sounds like me."
"He is exactly like you." She said it without bitterness.
"That's been both wonderful and exhausting."
From the bed, Thomas shifted in his sleep and murmured something unintelligible.
We both looked over.
"I'm going to need an attorney," Evelyn said quietly.
"A good one.
Not because I want to fight you.
Because I need to understand what my rights are and what the boys' rights are before anything else moves forward."
"I'll connect you with someone independent of my family.
Someone you choose."
She nodded.
"And the Boston deal?" she asked.
"You canceled it."
"It can wait."
She looked at me steadily.
"Marcus.
Don't make me the reason you lose something important."
"You're not the reason." I looked at the boys.
"They are.
And that's different."
She held my gaze for a moment, then looked away.
From across the room, Daniel turned over in his sleep, and his face came into the light.
My father's jawline.
My father's brow.
Six years.
I stayed until both boys were breathing deeply and Evelyn had fallen asleep in the chair.
Then I sat at the small table in the dark and called my personal attorney, James Whitfield, and left a message telling him I needed an urgent meeting in the morning.
When I hung up, I noticed Eleanor had sent a text at 10:47 PM.
*There are things about Gerald Marsh's arrangement you do not yet know.
Come back tomorrow.
Alone.*
May you like
I set the phone face-down on the table.
Whatever she was holding back, she had held it long enough.
