Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN MY HUSBAND CALLED HIS FATHER'S MISTAKE
I read Evelyn's warning three times before replying.
Why don't you want me to wear it?
Her answer came almost immediately.
Because it doesn't belong in our family.
I looked down at the bracelet resting in my palm.
For years, Evelyn had made me feel the same way.
As though I were an inconvenience she tolerated because Logan had married me.
But the bracelet had belonged to my grandmother's friend.
It had been kept with love.
And whatever history Evelyn wanted buried wasn't hers alone to decide.
I wrote back.
Then perhaps we should discuss whose family it belongs to.
She didn't respond.
That afternoon, I went to Daisy's studio.
Not because I wanted another confrontation.
Because there was one question I needed answered before the banquet.
Daisy greeted me with a bright smile.
“Nora! I was just thinking about you.”
I looked at her carefully.
She was beautiful in a soft, approachable way.
Brown hair.
Warm eyes.
A smile that had once made strangers trust her immediately.
I had trusted her with every disappointment of my marriage.
Every lonely anniversary.
Every pregnancy test that came back negative.
She knew how badly I'd wanted a child.
And she'd stood beside Logan while he planned to use that longing against me.
“I wanted to ask about your family,” I said.
Her smile became cautious.
“My family?”
“Rebecca.”
“Oh.”
“She's your aunt, right?”
“Practically.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Practically?”
Daisy moved behind the counter.
“She helped raise me. You know that.”
“I thought she was your mother's sister.”
“She was a family friend.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Daisy sighed.
“Because I didn't think it mattered.”
I placed the archival photograph on the counter.
Her face went white.
“Where did you get that?”
“The Bennett Foundation.”
She stared at Rebecca standing beside Marian.
Then she looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite identify.
Fear.
But also grief.
“Please put that away.”
“Why?”
“Because you don't understand what you're getting involved in.”
“Then explain it.”
She turned toward the window.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “Rebecca wasn't my aunt. She was my mother.”
I felt the floor tilt beneath me.
“Your mother?”
Daisy nodded.
“She raised me alone. But she made me promise never to tell anyone connected to the Bennetts.”
“Why?”
“Because she said that family destroyed everyone who loved them.”
I remembered Daisy crying in college.
The mysterious older woman who paid her tuition.
The holidays when she claimed she had nowhere to go.
“Why did you tell me you had no family?”
Daisy turned back.
“Because by then, Rebecca had disappeared from my life.”
“What happened?”
“She told me she couldn't keep supporting me. Said I needed to make my own future.”
“And you believed her?”
“I was nineteen, Nora.”
Her eyes filled.
“Do you know what it's like to be told your whole life that you're someone else's shame?”
For one painful moment, I saw the girl I'd befriended.
Lonely.
Angry.
Desperate to be chosen.
Then I remembered the hospital.
My sympathy stopped short of forgiveness.
“Did Logan know?”
Daisy hesitated.
That hesitation told me everything.
“How long have you been seeing him?” I asked.
“Nora—”
“How long?”
She looked down.
“Before your marriage.”
The words landed exactly where I expected.
But they still hurt.
“Before our engagement?”
She nodded.
“Did he end things with you?”
“He said he had to.”
“Because his parents wanted him to marry me?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
Our marriage had begun with a lie.
The courtship.
The proposal.
The wedding photographs.
All those moments I'd treasured had been built around a secret relationship.
“Then why did you come back into his life?”
Daisy's tears spilled.
“I didn't plan it.”
I almost laughed.
“You didn't plan an eight-year affair?”
“It wasn't eight years.”
I stared at her.
“It ended when he married you. For a long time, it really ended.”
“How long?”
“Until three years ago.”
The year Logan began spending long evenings at the foundation.
The year Daisy's jewelry studio received its mysterious investment.
“You took his money.”
“He offered to help the business.”
“You already had my money.”
Daisy flinched.
“I know.”
“You could have told me.”
“I was afraid you'd take everything away.”
I looked around the studio.
The glass displays.
The polished counters.
The framed photographs of weddings.
I'd helped build this place because I wanted my best friend to have something secure.
And she'd been afraid of losing it.
“Nora,” Daisy whispered, “I didn't know you were pregnant.”
I stepped back.
She froze.
For one terrible second, neither of us moved.
Then she looked at my stomach.
“You are?”
I said nothing.
Her hand rose to her mouth.
“Oh, God.”
I watched the realization spread across her face.
She understood what Logan had promised.
She understood what it would mean if I had a baby of my own.
But she didn't ask whether I was healthy.
She didn't ask whether I was happy.
Instead, she whispered, “Does Logan know?”
That was all I needed to hear.
I picked up the photograph.
“You can tell him whatever you want.”
“Nora, please.”
I turned toward the door.
Then she said something that stopped me.
“Logan isn't the only man who lied to you.”
I looked back.
Daisy's face was pale.
“What does that mean?”
She opened a drawer beneath the jewelry counter.
Inside was an old silver watch.
The same one I'd seen in the college photograph.
Logan's grandfather's watch.
Or so I'd believed.
“He gave this to me before your wedding,” Daisy said.
“Why?”
“He said it was proof that he would come back.”
I stared at the watch.
The engraving on the back read:
To Charles, for the truth we owe her. M.E.
Marian Ellsworth.
I looked up sharply.
“That's not Logan's watch.”
Daisy shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why did Logan have it?”
“Because his father gave it to him.”
She swallowed.
“And Charles told Logan that if Rebecca ever returned, he was to make sure she never got near the foundation.”
I felt cold.
“Why would Rebecca want the foundation?”
Daisy looked at me for a long moment.
Then she whispered, “Because Charles Bennett is my grandfather.”
I stared at her.
“Your grandfather?”
Daisy nodded.
“Rebecca is his daughter.”
My thoughts spun.
Charles had a daughter no one acknowledged.
A daughter whose existence had been hidden.
A granddaughter who had grown up being told she didn't belong.
Then a worse realization struck.
“If Charles is your grandfather, and Logan is his son…”
Daisy nodded slowly.
“Logan is my mother's half-brother.”
I stepped backward.
She covered her face.
“I didn't know when we first dated,” she whispered. “I swear I didn't.”
I could barely speak.
“When did you find out?”
She lowered her hands.
“Three years ago.”
The exact year their affair had resumed.
The exact year her studio received Bennett money.
I stared at the woman who'd once been my closest friend.
“You knew.”
Daisy began shaking her head.
“Nora, it's not that simple.”
But it was simple enough.
She had learned something that should have ended their relationship forever.
Instead, she'd stayed.
Then I remembered her ultrasound.
The baby she was carrying.
My voice dropped.
“Daisy, if Logan is your uncle…”
She interrupted, suddenly desperate.
“That's what Charles wanted everyone to believe.”
I went still.
“What?”
She gripped the watch so tightly her knuckles whitened.
“Rebecca told me Charles was her father. But two months before she died, she left me a letter.”
She opened the watch.
A tiny folded piece of paper rested beneath its damaged backing.
“I was too scared to show anyone.”
I took it.
The handwriting was faded but legible.
Charles has never told the truth about who Rebecca's father was. Ask Evelyn what happened in 1986.
I looked up.
Daisy was crying.
“And Nora,” she whispered, “there's something else.”
“What?”
“The man who gave Logan those resort tickets wasn't his assistant.”
“Who was it?”
“Charles.”
I stared at her.
May you like
Daisy swallowed.
“He's not nearly as helpless as Evelyn wants everyone to believe.”
