Chapter 3

Heather shot to her feet. “Nicole!”

The smile on Wesley’s face froze for half a second. Then he looked up, saw me, and quickly regained his composure. “You must be Desmond. Heather talks about you all the time.”

Desmond.

He knew exactly who I was. He knew this home had a husband, a father. Yet here he stood in my doorway, with my daughter clinging to him and calling him 'daddy'.

What was even more ridiculous was that he did not ask where the slippers were after coming inside. He bent down, took the pair of gray men’s slippers from the second shelf of the shoe cabinet, and slipped them on with practiced ease.

It was as though he had always had a place in this home.

I pulled out my phone and started recording. Heather’s expression darkened.

“Desmond, what are you doing?”

I did not answer.

Wesley set the breakfast on the right side of the dining table, then took a cup from the cabinet and poured Nicole some milk. The cup was covered in cartoon stickers. It looked as though he had used it countless times.

He smiled at me and explained, “Desmond, don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not easy for Heather to raise a child on her own. I’m just a helpful guy. If I can lend a hand, I will.”

I stared at him. “And helping her means sleeping over at my house?”

Wesley’s expression shifted slightly. Heather immediately blew up.

“Can you stop making everything sound so ugly? You’re seriously taking a child’s words at face value? Wes just comes by to help out. It was only because it got so late that he…”

She suddenly stopped. She probably realized she could not even make that excuse sound convincing.

I asked, “Wes?”

Wesley chuckled, but there was a taunting glint in his eyes.

“That’s what Heather usually calls me. Desmond, while you’ve been away all these years, someone had to lend her a hand. Don’t worry. I love Nicole like she’s my own daughter.”

The anger simmering in my chest finally erupted. “My daughter needs you to love her like she’s your own?”

Frightened, Nicole flinched and snuggled closer to Wesley. “Daddy, Mr. Lowe is so scary.”

Those words hurt more than Wesley’s taunts ever could.

Heather scooped Nicole into her arms, her eyes filled with accusation.

“Desmond, look what you’ve done to her!”

“I just came home, and she calls me Mr. Lowe. An outsider walks through the door, and she calls him daddy. How exactly am I supposed to stay calm?”

Heather let out a cold laugh. “Now you remember you’re a father? What have you done these past three years besides sending money?”

The room fell silent. I looked at her and suddenly let out a small laugh.

So all the money I had worked myself to the bone earning, through wind and rain for three years, had been reduced to one thing in her eyes. All I ever did was send money.

I put my phone away. “Fine.”

Heather frowned. “What do you mean, fine?”

“If you really think sending money is the only thing I’ve done…”

I glanced at her, then turned to Wesley. “Then starting this month, I won’t be sending any more.”

Heather was startled for a moment.

The smile on Wesley’s face faded just as quickly. Heather assumed I was only making empty threats in the heat of the moment.

After dropping Nicole off at preschool, she came home and immediately confronted me.

“Desmond, don’t you dare use money to threaten me!”

I did not argue with her again. I went to the bank and canceled the monthly automatic transfer I had set up.

While I was at it, I also suspended some of the spending privileges on the supplementary credit card under her name.

That evening, Heather did not come home for dinner. She messaged me, saying she was taking Nicole to dance class.

I sat alone in the living room and opened the tablet she left on without logging out.

A set of photos popped up in the cloud-synced album.

It was Nicole’s birthday. Written across the cake were the words: [Happy Birthday, Daddy!]

The background was our living room. Wesley wore a birthday hat. Heather stood beside him, while Nicole wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

The photos were dated June of last year. That was the day I came down with a high fever at the project site in the northwest.

It turned out Nicole had not been asleep after all.

I barely slept that night.

The next morning, I collected several strands of Nicole’s hair with the roots still attached from her hairbrush.

When I dropped them off at the testing center, the staff told me to wait for a notification.

Three days later, a text message arrived: [Mr. Lowe, your submitted paternity test results are ready. Please bring your identification to collect the report.]