“Four,” he repeated, as if another answer might appear if he said it twice.
Priya stepped beside me, concern sharpening her features.
I took Rose’s hand and stood.
“Nathaniel, not here,” I said.“They’re little girls, and this is their happy day.”
He swallowed.
“Are they mine?”
“I tried to tell you.
I have the letters.”
“I never got any letters.”
We stared at each other.
For five years I had believed he rejected his children.For the first time, I saw that perhaps he was hearing of them at the same moment he was meeting them.
The girls watched us with increasing uncertainty.
I put my arm around Hazel.
“We’ll talk privately, through the right people,” I told him.
He nodded, but his face had lost every trace of that familiar confident smile.
PART 6: A Question Without a Simple Answer
Back at home, the girls wanted to know why the airport man had looked so sad.
