Chapter 11 - The Girl in the Photograph
Nathan requested an independent DNA test.
Not because he doubted Grace.
Because no court could afford to.
The results arrived the next afternoon.
99.99 percent.
Lily Bennett was his daughter.
Nathan sat alone for several minutes after reading it.
Then he found Lily in the garden.
She was sitting beneath an orange tree with crayons scattered around her.
Grace watched from the terrace.
Nathan approached slowly.
“Can I sit?”
Lily nodded.
He lowered himself onto the grass.
She continued coloring.
Nathan saw three figures.
A tall man.
A woman.
A little girl holding both their hands.
He struggled to speak.
“Who is that?”
Lily pointed.
“Mommy.”
Then herself.
“Me.”
Nathan waited.
She pointed to the man.
“You.”
His throat tightened.
“How did you know?”
Lily looked at him as though the question was simple.
“Pictures.”
Nathan turned toward Grace.
Grace walked closer.
“I kept one.”
She removed an old photograph from her wallet.
Nathan and Grace at a county fair five years earlier.
Nathan had one arm around Grace.
He was laughing.
“I told Lily her father was a good man who didn’t know where we were.”
Nathan looked at her.
“You protected me.”
“I protected her from believing she was unwanted.”
That hurt more than blame would have.
Nathan looked at Lily.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Mommy said.”
Nathan smiled through tears.
Grace knelt beside them.
For a moment, the world became quiet.
Then Lily asked.
“Are you going away?”
Nathan felt the question cut through him.
“No.”
Lily stared carefully.
“Promise?”
Nathan looked at Grace.
He understood that promises had once been dangerous things in her life.
He turned back to Lily.
“I’m going to do everything I can to stay.”
Lily considered that.
Then she handed him a purple crayon.
It was the smallest act imaginable.
Nathan accepted it like a gift worth millions.
That evening, the peace vanished.
Daniel arrived with court documents.
Richard Vale had filed an emergency petition.
He was challenging Charles’s codicil.
He claimed Grace had blackmailed Charles into creating it.
Worse, he had produced a witness.
Aaron Blake.
The fictional man listed as Lily’s father.
Except Aaron Blake was not fictional anymore.
He appeared on television that night.
Standing outside a courthouse.
May you like
Holding photographs.
Claiming Grace had stolen his daughter.
