He told him he was afraid that wanting to know David might be disloyal. Then he stared at Paul’s name until his vision blurred. “I am not replacing you,” Connor said. That sentence mattered enough that he repeated it.
Sarah was crying when he returned to the car. Connor looked at her and felt irritation before compassion. “Did Dad know?” he asked. Sarah nodded.
“All of it?” “He knew David was a possibility.” Connor looked out the windshield. “And he married you anyway.”
“Yes.” “Why?” Sarah laughed through tears. “Because he loved me.
Because he already loved the idea of you. Because Paul was sometimes stubborn enough to turn a decision into a moral philosophy.” Connor smiled despite himself. Then he asked the question he had been avoiding.
“Did he ever resent me?” Sarah answered immediately. “Never you. Sometimes the situation.
Sometimes me. Never you.” That distinction became one of the foundations Connor stood on afterward. Paul’s parents, Robert and Elaine Pell, reacted to the DNA confirmation with more fear than anger.
They invited Connor to dinner and spent the first twenty minutes pretending the subject did not exist while Elaine overcooked green beans and Robert asked about college applications. Finally Connor put down his fork. “I am not going anywhere,” he said. Elaine’s eyes filled instantly.