“PLEASE! LET ME SEE EVELYN! IF YOU DON’T, WE’RE FINISHED!”
I stared at him.
“Yesterday, you didn’t even want her. What changed?”
He looked at his mother.
She shook her head frantically.
“Ben, don’t tell her!”
But he began crying harder.
“I should have told you six years ago. Before you became pregnant.”
Then he whispered something that made my knees give way.
“I HAVE ANOTHER DAUGHTER.”
For several seconds, I couldn’t speak.
“What?”
“Her name is Claire. She’s eighteen.”
I felt as though the entire world had stopped.
Ben and I had been married for eight years. During that time, he had never once mentioned having a child.
“How could you hide your own daughter from me?”
He wiped his eyes.
“I was twenty when she was born. Her mother and I weren’t married. I wasn’t ready to become a father.”
