Dad kept his eyes on the table.
Thirty-two years earlier, Mom had admitted Vanessa wasn’t biologically his.
She’d been having an affair.
Dad learned the truth when Vanessa was six years old.
“But you raised her.”
“Of course I did.”
“Did Vanessa know?”
He hesitated.
“No.”
Margaret spoke quietly.
“There’s more.”
Dad shot her a warning look.
She ignored it.
“Elaine’s affair wasn’t with a stranger.”
The color drained from Dad’s face.
I suddenly dreaded the answer.
“Who?”
Dad whispered,
“Harold Pike.”
The funeral director.
His closest friend.
The same man Vanessa claimed had found him dead.
I shot to my feet so fast my chair scraped across the floor.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I wish I were.”
Dad explained that Harold confessed shortly before Mom died.
Dad chose to keep the truth buried.
He loved Vanessa.
He refused to punish her for something she hadn’t done.
So he raised her as his own.
He paid for college.
Paid for her wedding.
Helped buy her first house.
Loaned Grant money twice.
And never once revealed that the man she’d always called “Uncle Harold” was actually her biological father.
Anger flooded through me.
“You should have told her.”
“I know.”
