But the man answered for them all.
“I want answers,” I said. “And I want them now.”
Dan and my mother argued in the hallway while I sat on the floor of the bridal suite, still in my dress, still wearing shoes that suddenly felt too high and absurd.
“You promised me,” my mother hissed.
Dan and my mother argued in the hallway.
“She deserved the truth,” Dan replied. “But we didn’t even get that far.”
Their voices were muffled through the wall, but the anger was sharp — my mother’s hissed panic, Dan’s controlled burn — and I had no idea where Nigel was.
“We don’t have to solve everything today, Steffy,” Noah said. “We can just leave and face this mess some other time.”
Their voices were muffled through the wall, but the anger was sharp.
“If I walk away now,” I said, shaking my head, “I’ll never come back to this. And I need to know.”
Later that evening, Dan sat across from me at a small table in the now-empty dining hall. His hands rested flat on the wood like he needed something solid to hold onto.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you before… but I can’t lie anymore. Not about this.”
“Tell me now. Tell me all of it.”
“I’ll never come back to this. And I need to know.”
My stepfather swallowed hard.
“Nigel was my best friend, Stephanie. And of course, he was also your father.”
“You knew him?”
“We went to college together,” Dan said, sighing deeply. “He asked me to look after you when he got arrested. He didn’t… pass on, sweetheart. That was your mother’s spin on the story. Nigel was caught for corporate fraud. He claimed that he was covering for someone else. And your mom didn’t want to wait around to see if he was telling the truth.”
“That was your mother’s spin on the story.”
“She told me that he died.”
“She did,” Dan said. “And I… I kept the story going, too. Your mother wanted a clean break, and from a certain angle, that truth felt like a little mercy for you.”
“You raised me,” I said. “You let me believe that my father was dead for most of my life.”
He didn’t deny it.
“Your mother wanted a clean break, and from a certain angle, that truth felt like a little mercy for you.”
“Did he try to contact me, Dan?”
“He did, Steph. He wrote to you. There were always two letters a year: one for your birthday and the other for Christmas.”
“Where are the letters?”
Dan looked down. And that was an answer in itself.
“Did he try to contact me, Dan?”
I met Nigel a week later at a diner near the highway. It was the kind of place that served burnt coffee and over-salted fries, and I understood immediately why he chose it.
No one would recognize us there.
“You look just like your mother.”
No one would recognize us there.
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