Chapter 9 - The Price of the Truth
Charles Mercer was arrested before sunrise.
The scandal exploded by breakfast.
News vans surrounded Mercer Tower.
Headlines appeared everywhere.
But Claire cared about only one thing.
Lucy.
She wanted her daughter away from cameras.
Drew arranged a private house outside the city.
Claire resisted.
Then she saw reporters outside her apartment.
She accepted.
The house belonged to Drew.
But he did not move in.
That mattered.
He gave Claire space.
Every morning, however, he arrived to see Lucy.
At first, she called him Drew.
Then she asked Claire a question.
“Is Drew my dad?”
Claire had promised herself she would never lie to her child.
“Yes.”
Lucy considered that.
“Does he know?”
Claire smiled through tears.
“He knows now.”
The next morning Lucy opened the door.
“Hi, Dad.”
Drew stopped breathing.
Claire watched from the kitchen.
He knelt.
“Hi, Lucy.”
She hugged him.
Drew closed his eyes.
Claire turned away.
Some moments were too private even for the woman who had waited five years to see them.
But healing was not simple.
That night Drew asked Claire why she never contacted him after Lucy was born.
Claire told him the truth.
She had tried.
Once.
She mailed a letter.
It came back unopened.
Across the envelope someone had written:
HE DOESN’T WANT YOU.
Drew stared at it.
“I never saw this.”
“I know that now.”
He touched the faded envelope.
Another stolen moment.
Another stolen choice.
Then he looked at Claire.
“What do we do with everything they took?”
Claire answered quietly.
“We stop letting them take anything else.”
May you like
But neither knew whether that meant rebuilding their marriage.
Or finally ending it properly.
