His jaw tightens. “Watch your tone, girl.”
I hold his gaze, my spine stiffening. “I’m notgirl. My name is Peyton. You’d do well to remember that.”
A tense silence stretches between us before John snorts and grabs his hat again.
“Stubborn like her mother,” he mutters before turning on his heel and walking out the back door.
Sutton winces. “He… doesn’t mean it like it sounds.”
I look at her, the familiar sting of rejection biting into my chest. “Yeah. He does.”
There is something I’m missing about his relationship with my mother. Her version of events doesn’t fit with what I’ve seen and been told. I’ve always known there are two sides to every story, but all I’ve ever heard is my mother’s side.
And I’m beginning to think most of it was a lie.
3
“Come on,”Sutton breaks the awkward silence which has fallen over us after my semen donor left. “I’ll show you to your room. You can freshen up and unpack before dinner.”
Sutton leads me up the staircase and then to the landing that looks down over the spacious living area. She attempts to make polite conversation, but I barely give her one-word answers.
She doesn’t push, which I am grateful for. She simply walks ahead like she understands my silence is the only thing holding me together right now.
The hallway is lined with old family photos—sepia-toned portraits and faded snapshots of people I don’t recognize. I glance at one as we pass: a young woman with familiar eyes and a fierce tilt to her chin. My chest tightens.
“Your mom,” Sutton acknowledges quietly, noticing where my gaze lingers. “High school graduation, I think.”
I don’t respond. I keep walking, one hand brushing the smooth wooden banister like it will anchor me in place.
Why does he have a photo of the woman he says he despises?
Finally, she stops at the end of the hall and pushes open a door. “Here you go. It used to be a guest room, but we figured you could make it yours.”
The room smells of cedar and fresh linen, warm and inviting like an old song you can’t quite place. A large picture window dominates the far wall, framing the golden sprawl of the field behind the house, where the sun sinks low, setting the tall grass ablaze with amber light.
The bed is a carved four-poster draped in crisp white sheets and a quilt stitched in soft earth tones, the fabric plush and clearly handmade with care. A cowhide rug lies across wide-plank hardwood floors, and beside the bed, an antique trunk serves as a side table stacked with books and a softly glowing ceramic lamp. In the corner, a polished writing desk sits beneath a framed landscape painting, elegant but unfussy, like the rest of the room. Everything here whispers of wealth that doesn’t need to show off.
“I’ll leave you to it,” she tells me. “Holler if you need me.”
I nod, and she lingers for a second like she wants to say more but decides against it. The door clicks shut behind her. I drop my bag onto the bed and sit beside it, the mattress creaking under my weight. For a moment, I stare at the floor.
Everything feels…off. Like I’ve stepped into someone else’s life. Someone who belongs here. Someone who might’ve grown up with Sunday dinners and softball games and a father who actually gave a damn.
That someone isn’t me.
My gaze drifts to the window. I watch as John crosses the yard, his figure a silhouette in the fading light. He moves like a man who’s spent a lifetime burying his regrets under hard work and silence.
Stubborn like her mother.
The words echo in my head. Not angry, more matter-of-fact. Like he was cataloging a flaw in a horse.
And yet…
There was something in his eyes when he looked at me. Something between recognition and pain.
I reach into my bag, fingers closing around the photograph tucked in the side pocket—the only one I have of my mom and me, taken when I was seven. Her arm is around me, smile wide and bright. But looking at it now, I wonder how real her smile truly was.
And how much of our life was a carefully constructed lie.
