His face changed as if she had struck him. “Oh my God,” Megan whispered. Sarah reached for her son’s arm. “Connor, listen to me.”
He pulled away. “Did you know?” Sarah’s mouth opened. Connor’s voice rose.
“Did you know he might be my dad?” “I knew it was possible,” she said. The answer was honest and catastrophic. Connor stared at her.
“Possible?” Sarah nodded once, tears rising now. “There was never a test.” David felt Megan look at him before she asked, “And you?”
He did not insult her with a lie. “I knew there was a possibility too.” The four of them stood under the foyer light with the front room arranged for photographs that would never be taken. The corsage box remained unopened.
Megan’s little silver clutch sat on the staircase where she had dropped it. On the side table was a framed photograph of Laura at forty, laughing into the wind during a family trip to Cape May, one hand holding her hair back from her face. David looked at it by accident and felt shame enter him not as an emotion but as a physical weight. Connor backed toward the door.
“I’m leaving.” Sarah moved after him. “You cannot drive like this.” “I came in your car.” He laughed again, harsher this time.
“Great. I do not even have an exit.” Megan reached for the staircase railing. “Connor.”