Chapter 6: A Photo Of His Mother
The upstairs office was colder than the hallway. Adrian had left the door open and I stood just inside it with my hands at my sides, listening to the air conditioner hum through the vent above his desk.
Lily was asleep down the hall in my room. I'd tucked the blanket up to her shoulders and she hadn't stirred when I'd closed the door halfway. The box sat on the floor beside her bed again, closed.
Adrian stood at the far bookshelf. He wasn't looking at me. He lifted a small silver frame from the second shelf and wiped dust from the glass with his thumb.
"I keep meaning to move this downstairs," he said. His voice was low. "I never did."
He turned and held it out.
I didn't take it right away. My hands didn't want to move. Then I stepped forward and took it with both hands.
The photo was old, the color a little faded. A woman in her late twenties, dark hair pulled back the same way Isabella wore hers but softer. She was sitting on what looked like a porch, smiling with her eyes first. Light gray eyes, wide set, the left lid a fraction heavier than the right. The same uneven crease Lily had. I felt my throat get tight.
"That's my mother," Adrian said. "She was twenty-six there. Same age you were—" He stopped. "Lily's age plus twenty-six, I mean."
I nodded. I couldn't look up yet.
"May I?" he asked, and gently tilted the frame so light hit it.
I held it still. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He'd taken a picture of Lily at the daycare parking lot, I hadn't realized. In it she was half turned toward my car door, her hair messy from the wind, those same eyes squinting against the sun.
He held the phone next to the frame.
We both looked.
The shape was the same. Not just the color. The way the outer corner tipped down a little. The way Lily's eyes went wide before she smiled. It was there in his mother too.
"That's not a coincidence," he said quietly.
"No," I said. My voice was barely there. "It's not."
He lowered the phone but kept the frame in my hands. "Elena. I need to ask you something straight. And I need you to answer it straight, whatever it is."
I finally looked up at him.
"Was there anyone else?" he asked. "Around that time. Anyone else who could be her father."
The office was so quiet I could hear the clock on his desk. My face got hot. I wanted to look back at the photo but I made myself hold his gaze.
"No," I said. "There wasn't. There was only you. That night in September, before the foundation dinner. You remember."
He exhaled slowly. His shoulders dropped a little.
"I remember," he said.
"It was once," I said. "I didn't plan it. I didn't— after, I found out in December. I didn't tell you because you were already with Isabella. And I didn't want you to think I was trying to trap you. I told myself I could do it alone."
"I wasn't thinking you'd trapped me," he said. He said it quickly, like he needed me to hear it. "I'm not thinking that now."
I handed the frame back. My fingers left prints on the silver.
He set it carefully on the desk, facing us. "I want to do this right. Not a lab order. Not a threat. If you're willing, we sign a voluntary acknowledgment. You and me. We file it together. It makes me her legal father without—" He searched for the words. "Without turning her into a case. No one has to swab her cheek in a lobby. Not unless you want that later for medical history or whatever. But this way it's your choice, not something done to you."
My chest pulled tight. That word, voluntary, it sounded clean and heavy at once.
"I can't just sign," I said. "Not tonight. I need to think. She's been only mine for three years. If I sign that, everything changes."
"I know," he said. "I'm not asking you to sign tonight. I'm asking if you'll consider it. Talk to someone if you want. Anyone you trust."
I crossed my arms. The office air felt colder. "And Isabella?"
He glanced toward the open door. The hallway mirror at the end caught our reflection, the chandelier light doubled behind us.
"That's separate," he said, but his jaw tightened.
We didn't hear her at first. Then the floorboard just outside the office creaked.
Isabella stood in the hallway. She wasn't wearing the burgundy dress anymore but a cream sweater and slacks, her hair still pulled back. She'd been close enough to hear. Her eyes went to the silver frame on the desk, then to the phone in Adrian's hand, then to me.
"So that's it," she said. Her voice was flat. Too calm. "You're comparing baby photos now."
Adrian stepped half in front of the desk. "Isabella—"
"Don't," she said to him, and then looked straight at me. "You told him no one else. How convenient, Elena. Three years of silence and now you remember so clearly."
I didn't answer. My hands were trembling again and I hid them by pressing them against my sides.
"She asked me a direct question and I answered it," I said, but my voice shook.
Isabella laughed once, no humor in it. "And he proposes paperwork. Voluntary. How noble." She turned that flat stare back to Adrian. "You believe her because of eyes in a picture. You haven't even verified anything."
"It's not about belief," Adrian said. His voice stayed even, but I saw his hand tighten on the edge of the desk. "It's about giving her a path that isn't forced."
"Forced is exactly what this is," Isabella said. "For her, for me, for this house. You bring a child in here based on a photograph and I'm supposed to smile for your gala?"
Lily made a small sound down the hall through the half-open door. Just a sigh in sleep, but I heard it and my whole body turned toward it.
Isabella heard it too. Her expression sharpened.
"She's still here," she said. "Of course she is."
Adrian looked at me, then at Isabella. "We will talk about this downstairs. Not here."
"Nobody's signing anything tonight," I said quickly. "I said I need to think. That hasn't changed."
Adrian nodded once. "Understood. No papers tonight. No lab. We leave it here."
Isabella didn't move from the doorway. She was blocking the mirror's reflection now, her figure cutting the chandelier light in half.
May you like
"Good," she said. "Because if you sign anything, Adrian, you should know exactly what you're giving away."
She stepped back just enough to let me pass, but her eyes stayed on the silver frame the whole time I walked out toward Lily's room.
