Marion’s dinner party felt unreal.
Crystal glasses clinked.
People laughed.
Music played softly in the background.
Ethan 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.
“Clarissa, you haven’t been yourself all night.”
“Just a headache.”
She gave me the look she used when employees tried hiding problems during meetings.
“Whatever is bothering you, ask questions before you make assumptions.”
I almost laughed.
She had no idea how appropriate that advice was.
A few minutes later, I excused myself and locked myself inside the powder room.
I opened the clutch.
My hands were trembling as I unfolded the first letter.
Ethan,
Thank you again for the money. Milo asked about you all week. He drew another picture for you. Please don’t worry about me.
Your sister,
Brenda.
I froze.
Sister?
I read it again.
Your sister.
Not lover.
Not mistress.
Sister.
I pulled out another letter.
Then another.
All of them told the same story.
Milo missed Uncle Ethan.
Brenda thanked Ethan for helping with expenses.
There were references to medical appointments.
Medication.
Hospital visits.
The legal document suddenly looked different too.
Ethan wasn’t trying to become Milo’s father.
He was being asked to become his guardian if something happened to Brenda.
Someone knocked on the bathroom door.
I quickly shoved everything back inside my purse.
But the relief I felt was complicated.
Maybe Ethan wasn’t cheating.
But he had still hidden an entire family from me.
I barely slept that night.
Ethan slept beside me peacefully while I stared at the ceiling rehearsing a hundred ways to confront him.
By sunrise, I had decided.
I made coffee and placed two mugs on the kitchen counter.
Ethan 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 disappeared from his face.
“Clarissa…”
“Who is Brenda?”
He stared at the bundle.
Then he closed his eyes.
“My sister.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“You don’t have a sister.”
“Yes. I do.”
He rubbed both hands across his face.
“My half sister.”
I said nothing.
“My father left my mother when I was four,” Ethan continued. “He started another family two states away. Brenda is his daughter from that marriage.”
“And Milo?”
“Her son.”
“How old?”
“Six.”
I stared at him.
“How long have you known about them?”
“A little over a year.”
“And you never thought your wife should know?”
“Clarissa—”
“Answer me.”
“Brenda contacted me after her mother died. Her mother told her the truth about our father before she passed away. Brenda found me afterward.”
I remembered Ethan’s mysterious trips.
“The business trips?”
He looked down.
“Brenda lives in that town.”
“And the money?”
“I’ve been helping them.”
“With what?”
Ethan hesitated.
“Brenda 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 toward the guardianship papers.
“A few weeks ago, she asked if I would become Milo’s legal guardian if anything happened to her.”
I pushed my chair backward and stood.
“You knew what my father did to my family.”
Ethan 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 become easier.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Secrets don’t become easier, Ethan.”
He lowered his head.
“At first, I thought I should get to know Brenda before involving you. I didn’t even know whether 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 became 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 beneath our bed.”
He flinched.
Then he said something I hadn’t expected.
“I was ashamed.”
“Of Brenda?”
“No.”
He shook his head quickly.
“Of my father.”
Ethan stared at his hands.
“I spent my entire 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 Brenda 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 that if I told you I had a secret half sister and a nephew you’d never heard about, you would 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.”
Ethan swallowed.
“What?”
“You hid an entire family from your wife.”
His face fell.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Finally, Ethan 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 Brenda asked about guardianship.”
He looked terrified.
“What if you said no?”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“What if you told me you didn’t want the responsibility of raising a six-year-old boy who wasn’t ours? What if I had to choose between my marriage and protecting Milo?”
My chest tightened.
“So you decided for me instead.”
Ethan couldn’t answer.
That hurt more than anything.
I had spent the previous night preparing myself to discover an affair.
I had imagined lipstick.
Hotel receipts.
A second phone.
Divorce papers.
Instead, I had discovered something almost 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 Milo.
Fear that he had inherited something ugly from the father who abandoned him.
And that fear had caused him to shut me out.
I grabbed my car keys.
“Clarissa, where are you going?”
I didn’t answer.
Because for once, I didn’t want Ethan’s explanation.
I wanted Brenda’s.
PART 3
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