PART 8
I lowered the letter.
Nobody moved.
Alyssa stared at her mother.
“Who was there?”
Vivian didn’t answer.
“Mom.”
Still nothing.
“Who was in the delivery room?”
Vivian’s knees buckled.
She grabbed the back of the chair.
And then someone behind us spoke.
A man’s voice.
Old.
Shaking.
But unmistakably familiar.
“I was.”
Every head turned toward the doorway.
I knew that voice.
I’d heard it hundreds of times during my childhood.
It belonged to the man who had been standing beside Dad in every old photograph.
Dad’s business partner.
His closest friend.
And the person I had always been told was practically an uncle to Alyssa.
Richard Mason.
He stood in the doorway, holding his hat against his chest.
Alyssa stared at him.
“Mr. Mason?”
Richard looked at her.
His eyes filled with tears.
And then he said the words that made Vivian collapse into the chair.
“I was there the night you were born, Alyssa.”
He swallowed.
“Because I was your father.”
Nobody spoke.
Not even Alyssa.
She simply stared at Richard Mason as though the room had suddenly tilted beneath her feet.
“My father?”
Richard nodded once.
Alyssa shook her head.
“No.”
Her voice was barely audible.
“No, that’s not possible.”
Richard stepped into the room.
“I wish it weren’t true.”
Vivian suddenly stood.
“Richard, stop.”
He looked at her.
“For thirty years, Vivian.”
His voice was quiet.
“I’ve stopped every time you asked me to.”
Vivian’s face crumpled.
“Not here.”
“Where, then?”
Richard looked around the room.
“At another funeral?”
His eyes moved toward the portrait of William Harper hanging above the fireplace.
“Because that’s how this family has always handled the truth, isn’t it?”
Alyssa looked between them.
“Mom?”
Vivian closed her eyes.
Richard continued.
“Your mother told me William could never know.”
Alyssa’s voice broke.
“Why?”
“Because she was already married to him.”
Alyssa stared at Vivian.
Richard looked at me.
“And because William had already fallen in love with Candace.”
I frowned.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Richard took a slow breath.
“Everything.”
He sat down.
“I met your mother before she met William. We were young. Stupid. We thought we had time to figure out what we wanted.”
Vivian whispered, “Richard…”
He continued.
“But then she met William.”
He looked at the photograph of Dad.
“He had money. Stability. A family name. And she knew William wanted children.”
Alyssa looked sick.
“You married him because of his money?”
Vivian shook her head.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?”
Vivian didn’t answer.
Richard did.
“She became pregnant.”
Alyssa’s eyes widened.
“With me?”
“Yes.”
Richard’s voice trembled.
“She told me the baby was mine.”
“Then why did Dad believe you were his?”
“Because Vivian told William she was pregnant with his child.”
Alyssa turned toward her mother.
“You lied to him.”
Vivian began crying.
“I was terrified.”
“You lied to my father.”
“I was terrified of losing everything.”
Alyssa laughed bitterly.
“So you kept me.”
Vivian looked at her.
“You were my daughter.”
“But you let Dad raise me.”
“Yes.”
“You let him love me.”
“Yes.”
“You let him pay for everything.”
“Yes.”
“And then you spent thirty years telling Candace she wasn’t really his daughter.”
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