“Yes,” she said, wiping her cheeks. “Yes, my darlings. Come with me.”
The boys looked at me for permission.
I nodded.
“Stay together.”
They followed Marianne toward the kitchen, and half the family moved after them as if pulled by gravity. People wanted distance from Daniel. From the documents. From the investigators. From the man they had spent years admiring.
Only Daniel, his father, Vanessa, the investigators, and I remained in the hall.
Snow thickened against the windows.
For a while, no one spoke.
Then Daniel’s father turned to me.
“Kesha.”
I looked at him.
He had always been polite to me. Distant, but never cruel. In another life, I might have mistaken that for kindness. Now I understood politeness could be just another locked door.
“I don’t know what to say,” he murmured.
“That makes two of us.”
His eyes dropped to the birth certificates.
“All boys?”
