“Guilt, I guess. Wanting to make things right—or as right as I can at this late date. I know you have no reason to believe this, but I honestly wasn’t the type to cheat. I never cheated before that day or after. I also never dreamed I’d have sex with a girl who was barely eighteen and certainly didn’t set out to make that happen.”
Charlotte glanced out the window, hoping her parents and Lilly wouldn’t return quite yet. “You’re saying it was all Sabrina?”
“It takes two. I’m not blaming her. But when she came over to my house in a bikini one day and asked me to come kill a spider in her bedroom because her parents weren’t home to do it, things got out of hand. I’d noticed her before, of course. And I knew she’d noticed me. She’d always walk over when I was watering the lawn to talk to me or wave every time we passed.Anyway, that day she let me know she was interested, and I... I didn’t walk away like I should have.”
He sounded totally sincere. And Charlottehadlearned a lot about Sabrina—knew she’d loved the excitement of the taboo and would’ve enjoyed feeling so attractive that even the handsome neighbor, who was married, would want her.
“I felt horrible after it happened,” he continued. “And what made it all worse was that she kept coming over, trying to interest me again. I was afraid she’d destroy me!”
“Did you tell your wife about what happened?”
“I’m ashamed to say I didn’t. I looked at it as a mistake. It wasn’t an ongoing affair. I didn’t want to crush my wife because of fifteen hormone-fueled minutes. I knew how it would look. Itstilllooks that way! Instead, I convinced Cindy to move, and we put our house up for sale. She thought we were moving because I was tired of the neighborhood. But I was doing it just to escape Sabrina. I didn’t want to let my desire for an eighteen-year-old girl rip my family apart.”
“So you moved away.” Charlotte gripped her phone tighter. “Was that before or after you found out she was pregnant?”
“I never learned about the pregnancy. Before my house sold, Sabrina graduated from high school and was simply... gone. I didn’t know where she went. I never dreamed she was pregnant, and I certainly wasn’t sure, if she was pregnant, that the child would be mine. I’d only slept with her once, and she claimed to be on the Pill.
“Besides, I knew from how she’d behaved with me that she was very sexually active. But I heard whisperings around the neighborhood—things her mother, Kathy, was saying to various people. I even ran into Kathy at the grocery store one day, and the scathing look she gave me let me know whatshethought. I knew Sabrina would never have told her, feared the gossip was true. So I went over to her house to speak with her. If Sabrinawas pregnant, I knew I had to come clean, risk the loss of everything I had over one stupid encounter. But Kathy insisted there was no baby and slammed the door in my face.”
“She didn’t want your financial support?”
“I think she was embarrassed by her daughter. They never got along. Kathy was a very religious woman, felt there was a right way and a wrong way and Sabrina never seemed to choose the right way.
“Kathy also knew my wife. I think she acted to protect her and my children. I can’t be sure. But something about the way everything happened left me uneasy. For years I tried to believe that what I did that day would never come back to haunt me. I ran with that because my kids were still young, and I couldn’t bear what the truth might do to them. But as the years passed, I couldn’t help wondering if I had another child out there, and if that child might need me. So I finally told Cindy about what happened, and she supported me in submitting my DNA, just in case.”
Charlotte had thought such terrible things about this man. But now that she’d heard his story—now that he just seemed fallible, human—she didn’t feel quite so hard toward him. There was no need for him to make up anything. He was the one who’d put his DNA on that site so she could find him. She doubted he’d do that just to lie to her. The type of person she’d thought he was would’ve tried to skip out cleanly.
“That was very nice of your wife.”
“She’s a far better person than I am.”
The fact that they were still married and had made the DNA decision together suggested he wasn’t as terrible a person as his actions that one day might suggest. “I can’t blame it all on Sabrina,” Charlotte said. “She was so young.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he was quick to say. “I guess what I’m hoping for is that you’ll forgive us both. I don’t know whatkind of life you’ve lived, so I don’t know if that’s even possible, but I also wanted to let you know that I’m willing to help with anything you need me to make up for... for the fact that I’m partly responsible for bringing you into this world and then did nothing to support you.”
At last, Charlotte fully believed him. People didn’t step up, apologize, and offer to make restitution if they weren’t sincere. He could easily have gone on living his life without telling Cindy, without testing his DNA, without inviting her to contact him. Why would he make himself vulnerable to such an ugly truth coming out if he wasn’t completely repentant?
And that was what made it possible for her to forgive him, as he’d asked. “Fortunately, I had fabulous adoptive parents who didn’t let me want for anything. I’ve always been well-adjusted, happy.”
“Adoptive parents... So Sabrina didn’t keep you.”
“No. I was lucky she didn’t,” she said and went on to tell him everything she knew—about Sabrina’s death and the other child she’d left behind.
“I’d love to meet you one day,” he said at the end of the conversation.
Charlotte knew he wasn’t too far away. They’d sold their house and left the area where he’d known Sabrina many years ago, and were now in San Diego. She could drive down there one day—or have him drive to Orange County.
“I’d like that, too,” she said and meant it.
Julian loved geothermal activity, and Haukadalur Valley had a lot of it. While he was in Iceland, Fagradalsfjall erupted, a volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula only about twenty-five miles out of Reykjavík. He got incredible photographs, some of the best of his career, likely because he was feeling so fatalistic he was willing to get closer than the other photographers. He’dbeen offered a lot of money for them, so that was a win. But he wasn’t as excited as he should be.
Because of Charlotte. He’d stopped hearing from her several weeks ago, and it absolutely crushed him. He had to keep telling himself he was doing the right thing—that this was what was best for her—to keep from breaking down and calling her. And that wasn’t easy. The memories of their time together in Italy plagued him constantly. She was on his mindallthe time.
It didn’t help that he was alone in Iceland. That gave him far too much time to think.
But he didn’t feel like staying in close contact with anyone right now, especially his family. They just badgered him to get in touch with Charlotte. Lately, Sloane had even refused to tell him what was happening in Charlotte’s life. She said he couldn’t use her to keep track and needed to contact her himself.
He hadn’t spoken to his sister since then, but when he saw a call from Sloane coming in, he decided to take it. He knew she was visiting their parents and that his mother or father would just call him if he didn’t.
