“I’m sorry, Isabelle,” I said. “I never meant to cause any trouble—and I certainly didn’t mean to take Daphne’s place.”
“I never thought you did,” she replied.
“Can I ask you one question though, please?” I asked, rubbing the tears from my eyes.
“Yes.”
“You mentioned a call inside; what did you mean by that?”
“I got this call from another woman a few days ago,” Isabelle said. “She told me that I needed to visit my son-in-law and my grandson. There was a woman in their lives that I needed to meet. I suppose that’s what brought me here.”
I stared at her for a moment.
“Do you know who it might have been?” she asked.
“I know exactly who it was,” I said, trying to contain my hurt and anger. “It was my mother.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jake
I stared down at Noah, watching his eyelids flutter slightly in sleep. He had been a handful all day, mostly because he wanted to spend time with Kristen and I had to keep making excuses.
“I want to make cookies with Krissy,” he had insisted.
“You made cookies with Grandma yesterday,” I had pointed out, feeling a headache come on.
“Krissy makes them different,” Noah persisted. “They taste better.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Yes, they do.”
“No, they don’t,” I said, aware that I was having an argument with a four-year-old that I couldn’t possibly win. I had heard Noah keep this up for a steady fifteen minutes before, and I usually burned out after two minutes.
“Yes, they do.”
I had sighed tiredly and held my head for a moment. “Krissy is busy, kid,” I said. “She’s not going to be around for a while.”
At which point Noah had thrown a full-blown temper tantrum. I had tried everything to calm him down, but nothing worked. In the end, he had simply tired himself out. Then he had huffed into his room and stayed there until he had fallen asleep. Which is exactly how I’d found him when I’d walked in two minutes ago.
I sighed and kissed his forehead, wondering how on earth I was going to explain Kristen’s continuing absence. I was having a hard enough time explaining it to myself.
Right after Kristen had left, I had stormed off to my room, leaving Noah with Isabelle. When I’d finally emerged, Isabelle had insisted on talking to me, but I hadn’t been in the mood.
Now I wished I had. Now that my mind had had time to process the news, I had questions. I knew what Kristen had told me about her parents and the affair her father had continued with her mother for decades, but I knew very little else.
I remembered her mentioning a half-sister to me, but it hadn’t even crossed my mind that it might be Daphne. Those kinds of coincidences didn’t happen in real life. Except it wasn’t a coincidence at all… Kristen had planned this somehow. I didn’t know her purpose, but now I wanted to.
I couldn’t believe I had been so blind. She looked so much like Daphne that now I felt stupid for not having seen it sooner. I looked back on the past few months and thought about everything Kristen and I had shared. I couldn’t believe that she hadn’t told me. It was a pretty big secret to keep, and she hadn’t even given me a clue.
I walked out of Noah’s room and headed to mine. I was sitting on the edge of my bed as I dialed Isabelle’s number and waited for her to answer.
“Jake?” she answered almost immediately.
“Tell me what happened,” I said bluntly.
“Jake… I think perhaps you should talk to Kristen.”