It was Thanksgiving morning. It had been just the two of us for years, and the air was thick with the comforting smell of roasting turkey and cinnamon when I heard Grace enter the kitchen.
“Could you mash the potatoes, sweetie?” I asked.
Silence. I put down the spoon and turned.
What I saw stopped me cold.
What I saw stopped me cold.
She was standing in the doorway, shaking like a leaf, and her eyes were red-rimmed.
“Dad…” she murmured. “I… I need to tell you something. I won’t be here for Thanksgiving dinner.”
My stomach dropped.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Then she said the sentence that felt like a fist to the chest.
“I won’t be here for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Dad, I’m going to my real father. You can’t even imagine WHO he is. You know him. He promised me something.”
The air rushed out of my lungs, leaving me hollow. “Your… what?”
She swallowed hard, her eyes darting around the room as if looking for an escape route. “He found me. Two weeks ago. On Instagram.”
And then she said his name.
“He promised me something.”
Chase, the local baseball star who was a hero on the field and a menace everywhere else, was her father. I’d read the articles; he was all ego and zero substance.
And I loathed him.
“Grace, that man hasn’t spoken to you in your entire life. He’s never asked about you.”
She looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers together. “I know. But he — he said something. Something important.”
“He said something important.”
Her voice cracked, a tiny, pained sound. “He said… he could ruin you, Dad.”
My blood ran cold. “He WHAT?”
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