Chapter 4 - Rowan and Garrett
Garrett came to my house two days later.
Alone.
I had told Dana enough that she knew a paternity secret existed.
Not everything.
That was his responsibility.
Sorrel spent afternoon with my friend Miles and his wife.
I did not want him near the conversation.
Garrett sat across from me.
No lawyers.
Maybe should have.
But this was not about legal strategy yet.
“Start.”
He did.
Six years earlier Rowan and I separated.
Garrett and Dana were separated too.
That part I had forgotten.
Their marriage had been close to ending after repeated arguments over his travel and her return to graduate school.
They lived apart for seven months.
Garrett saw Rowan at a fundraiser.
They talked.
Then had dinner.
Then another.
Three weeks.
That was all.
“Did she know you were my brother?”
He stared.
“Obviously.”
The question was stupid.
I knew.
“How?”
“You and she weren’t speaking to anyone much.”
“I was speaking to you.”
“Not about Rowan.”
Fair.
Then:
“Did you tell her you were reconciling with Dana?”
“Not at first.”
There.
“When?”
“Near end.”
“After sleeping with her?”
“Yes.”
Rowan ended it.
Two weeks later, Garrett reconciled with Dana.
One month later, Rowan called him.
Pregnant.
Timing uncertain.
Garrett panicked.
He told her:
“If Bram takes you back, let him be the father.”
That sentence almost made me stand.
Garrett saw.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
“He had chosen you.”
“He was not an object you could assign.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
Silence.
Rowan and I reconciled.
She told me about another man.
Not who.
I said I did not want to know.
Garrett interpreted that as permission to disappear.
Then Sorrel was born.
Three months later Rowan contacted Garrett privately.
She wanted certainty.
Why?
Medical history.
Conscience.
Maybe both.
Garrett agreed to a private accredited DNA test.
Cheek swabs.
Result:
Probability of paternity greater than 99.99%.
“Where is it?”
Garrett looked down.
“Mom has the original.”
Of course.
“Rowan had copy?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She said you had made it clear you didn’t want to know.”
“That was before the father became my brother.”
Garrett winced.
Exactly.
Then:
“She wanted to tell you eventually.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she say?”
“When Sorrel was older. Or if medical reason came up.”
Convenient.
Then Garrett said:
“I asked her not to.”
There.
“Why?”
“Dana and I had Owen.”
Owen had been two when Sorrel was born.
Garrett feared:
Marriage destroyed.
Brother destroyed.
Family destroyed.
“Mom said no good came from reopening it.”
“My mother knew you fathered my son and still called him not blood.”
Garrett closed his eyes.
“I didn’t know she said that.”
“You did.”
“Not exact.”
“Yesterday you said it.”
There.
He had no defense.
Why had Garrett said:
He isn’t blood?
Because for five years he trained himself to deny.
To keep distance.
To prevent anyone noticing resemblance.
To convince himself biological fatherhood did not matter because Bramwell was legal and emotional father.
He turned self-protection into cruelty.
That did not make him my son’s father in any way that mattered day to day.
It made him the man who had known.
May you like
And hidden.
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