6

Opal

The silence in the dining room hung heavy and suffocating. The rhythmic tapping of the rain against the windowpane felt like a countdown, each drop demanding an answer I had spent half a decade running from.

Grayson remained standing, his dark eyes fixed on mine with an unsettling, adult-like patience. Grace looked up expectantly from her chair, her pink marker still clutched in her tiny hand, while Oliver bounced his heels against the table legs, eager for whatever piece of the puzzle I was about to drop.

My chest constricted. I looked down at the paper—at the tall, faceless man in the sharp black suit standing beside my children.

What’s our daddy’s name?

I knew in that exact, terrifying second that I had reached a boundary. I couldn't brush this off with a vague promise to talk later. They were five now. If I kept deflecting, if I kept shutting down their innocent curiosity, the silence would begin to curdle into something shameful. They would grow up believing their father was a forbidden subject, or worse, that they were a mistake I was trying to hide.

I swallowed hard, stepping closer to the table and pulling out an empty wooden chair. My knees felt weak as I sat down, bringing myself eye-level with the three of them.

"His name..." I started, my voice raspy before I cleared my throat and tried again. "His first name is Graham."

Grace’s face lit up instantly, a bright, beautiful smile breaking across her features. "Graham," she repeated softly, testing the syllables on her tongue as if trying on a new dress. "Graham. I like it. It sounds fancy."

"Is that his whole name?" Oliver asked immediately, leaning across the table on his elbows, his eyes wide with excitement. "What's his last name, Mommy? Is it Bennett like ours?"

"No, it's not Bennett," I said gently, reaching out to pat Oliver’s messy curls. "And... we don't need to worry about all the rest of the details tonight, sweetie. You just wanted to know his name."

I couldn't give them Morrison. A quick internet search of that name in a few years would throw open the doors to every sordid, disgusting scandal the tabloids had manufactured five years ago. I had to protect them from that reality for as long as humanly possible.

"Is he handsome?" Grace asked, placing her chin in her hands, her crooked hedgehog ponytails bobbing slightly.

A sharp, painful memory flashed unbidden behind my eyes—Graham standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows of our old apartment in the morning light, laughing softly as he adjusted his cufflinks, looking like he had been sculpted from marble.

"Yes," I admitted reluctantly, a faint, bitter smile touching my lips. "He... he is very handsome, Grace."

"Is he tall?" Oliver chimed in, tossing his green crayon into the air and barely catching it. "Is he super rich? Does he drive a race car? Is he good at soccer? Can he jump higher than a house?"

"Oliver, slow down," I laughed softly, though the breath hitched in my chest. "Yes, he's very tall. Way taller than me. And he was very good at his job."

"Was he funny?" Grace asked softly.

"Sometimes," I whispered. "When it was just the two of us... he had a very quiet smile."

While Oliver and Grace threw out rapid-fire questions, Grayson stayed completely still. He hadn't said a word since I uttered the name. His dark eyebrows pulled together, his gaze shifting from me to the faceless drawing, and then back to my eyes.

Then, he asked the one question I had dreaded every single day for five years.

"Does he know we exist?"

The room seemed to drop ten degrees. Oliver stopped tossing his crayon. Grace’s smile faltered slightly as she sensed the sudden shift in the air.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I looked at my eldest son—at the child who carried Graham’s exact eyes, his solemn intensity, his quiet brilliance. I could have lied. I could have made up a quick, painless story about how his father was far away or lost.

But I had promised myself five years ago that I would never build my children's lives on lies.

"No, Grayson," I said, my voice barely above a whisper, though it resonated clearly in the quiet room. "He doesn't know."

Grace’s little face instantly crumpled. Her shoulders slouched, her bright blue eyes welling with sudden, heavy tears. "He... he doesn't know about us?" she whimpered, her voice breaking. "Why? Didn't you tell him, Mommy?"

"Did he run away?" Oliver asked, his loud, boisterous tone suddenly dropping into something hesitant and confused. "Did he not want us?"

"No! No, absolutely not!" I said firmly, reaching out to grasp both Oliver’s and Grace’s small hands, squeezing them tightly. "Listen to me, all three of you. Look at me right now."

Grayson didn't move an inch, his dark eyes burning into mine.

"Your father did not abandon you," I said, forcing absolute certainty into every word so they would never doubt their worth. "He does not know about you because... because when your father and I decided we couldn't be married anymore, I didn't know I was pregnant yet. I was already far away when I found out about the three of you. It was a very hard, confusing time, and... I wasn't able to tell him."

I took a deep, shuddering breath, looking at each of them. "It was my choice. It had nothing to do with you. You are the greatest, most wonderful miracle that ever happened to me, and if your father knew you, he would know that too. But we were separated before I could ever say the words."

Grace wiped a tear from her cheek with her sleeve, nodding slowly. "So... he's not mad at us?"

"He doesn't even know to be mad or sad or anything," I promised her softly. "He just doesn't know. But you are loved. You are so, so loved by me, by Auntie Chloe, and by everyone in our lives. Okay?"

Oliver let out a big, dramatic sigh and picked his crayon back up. "Okay. But if he was here, I bet I could beat him at soccer."

I let out a wet, half-broken laugh, reaching across to ruffle his hair. "I bet you could, buddy."

We finished dinner in a quieter, more subdued atmosphere. I helped them wrap up the drawing, packed their schoolbags for the next day, and led them upstairs for bedtime.

After reading two stories and tucking Oliver and Grace into their twin beds, I walked across the hall to Grayson’s room. He was already tucked under his blue comforter, staring silently up at the glow-in-the-dark stars taped to his ceiling.

I leaned over and kissed his forehead. "Goodnight, my brave boy."

Grayson didn't answer right away. Just as I turned toward the door, his small voice called out in the dark.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, Gray?"

"Is Graham a good man?"

My hand lingered on the brass doorknob. The darkness of the room hid the pain that flashed across my face. I thought of Graham’s fierce protection when we were together, how he used to hold my hand in his sleep, and how hard he worked. Then I thought of the cold, unyielding hatred in his eyes when he threw me out without a second thought.

"I thought he was," I answered honestly into the dark. "Goodnight, Grayson."

"Goodnight, Mommy."

The moment I closed my bedroom door behind me, the wall of composure I had maintained all evening shattered.

I slid down the wooden back of the door until I was sitting on the floor, burying my face in my knees, and let the quiet, agonizing tears tear through me. Five years of suppressed grief, fear, and lonely struggle spilled over. I cried for the betrayal that had ripped my life apart, for the lonely nights in hospital waiting rooms, and for the hollow ache of raising three beautiful children without the man I had once loved more than life itself.

My phone on the nightstand chimed, its screen lighting up with Chloe’s name.

I scrambled over, wiping my cheeks furiously, and answered the call. "Chloe..."

"Opal? Oh, honey, you're crying," Chloe said, her voice filled with immediate, comforting warmth. "Did it go terribly?"

"I told them his name," I choked out, pulling a blanket around my shoulders as I sat on the edge of the bed. "I told them his first name was Graham. And... Grayson asked if he knows they exist. I had to tell them no, Chloe. I had to see the look on my daughter's face when she realized her father doesn't even know she was born."

"Opal, breathe," Chloe said gently, her tone steady and grounding. "You did the right thing. You didn't lie to them, but you protected them from the ugly part of the story. You have to remember why you didn't tell him."

"I feel like a monster," I sobbed quietly, pressing a hand to my forehead. "Looking at Grayson... he is so much like Graham it terrifies me. Am I robbing them of a father because I was too hurt and scared to go back?"

"Stop it," Chloe commanded firmly. "Graham Morrison looked at a stack of fabricated papers and decided you were a lying, cheating whore within ten minutes. He stripped you of your dignity, threw you to the wolves in the media, and let his family walk all over you. You were sick, exhausted, and carrying three babies alone. If you had gone back to him then, he would have dragged you through a brutal custody battle, declared you unfit, and taken those babies away from you. You saved your children, Opal."

I closed my eyes, letting her words wash over me. She was right. I knew she was right. The fear that had driven me out of New York five years ago was real, grounded in the terrifying reality of what powerful men do when they feel humiliated.

"I just... I can't throw everything at them at once," I whispered, wiping the remaining wetness from my face. "They're only five. I'll answer their questions slowly, as they grow up. But I can't let Graham back into our world. I can't survive that pain again."

"And you don't have to," Chloe reassured me softly. "You built a beautiful, safe life in Savannah. Graham Morrison is a thousand miles away in his icy tower, completely oblivious. You're safe, Opal."

"Thank you, Chloe," I breathed. "I'm going to try to get some sleep."

"Goodnight, mama. Call me in the morning."

I hung up the phone and lay down on the bed, staring up at the dark ceiling as the rain outside slowly began to die down into a faint drizzle.

Downstairs, the house was completely still.

The small nightlight in the hallway cast a soft, warm glow into the dining room, illuminating the poster board that still lay neatly on the wooden table, ready to be brought to kindergarten the next morning.

Footsteps padded silently across the floorboards.

Grayson stood by the edge of the table in his striped pajamas, his bare feet making no sound against the wood. He looked down at the colorful drawing of his family—at his mother with her long hair, at Oliver holding a green crayon, at Grace with her crooked ponytails, and at the tall, faceless man in the sharp black suit standing off to the side.

He reached out his small hand, picking up the black marker resting on the wood.

Slowly, carefully, with painstaking five-year-old concentration, Grayson leaned over the poster board. Beneath the blank, empty circle of the faceless man's head, he pressed the marker to the paper.

In blocky, uneven, capital letters, he wrote out the word:

G - R - A - H - A - M

He set the marker down, stared at the name for a long, quiet moment, and then turned silently to head back up to bed.