Chapter 7 - The Truth About Their Father
Two weeks later Cassidy told them.
Not everything.
Only what four-year-olds could understand.
“Mr. Hawthorne is your daddy.”
Three faces stared at her.
Emma frowned.
“All of us?”
Cassidy laughed through tears.
“Yes.”
Lily asked, “Why didn't he live with us?”
“He didn't know about you.”
Grace looked horrified.
“We were lost?”
“No, sweetheart.”
Cassidy hugged her.
“You were never lost.”
Their first family meeting was awkward.
Declan sat on Cassidy's living-room floor.
The girls surrounded him.
“Are you really our daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Declan blinked.
Cassidy covered a laugh.
“That's complicated.”
Lily inspected his face.
“I have your dimple.”
“Yes.”
Emma climbed beside him.
“I have your eyes.”
“You do.”
Grace whispered, “Do you love us?”
Declan stopped breathing.
Cassidy watched his face collapse.
He opened his arms.
“I already do.”
Grace entered them first.
Then Emma.
Then Lily.
Cassidy turned away because tears blurred her vision.
For one dangerous moment, the room looked like the family they might have been.
But families were not built from single beautiful moments.
May you like
They were built from what happened afterward.
And Cassidy still did not know whether Declan knew how to stay.
