“She’d probably just lie to me.”
Isabelle sighed. “You seem to care about her very much.”
“Not anymore.”
“That sounds like a lie you’re telling yourself in the moment.”
“Isabelle,” I said impatiently. “Please, just tell me what happened… Did Daphne even now about Kristen?”
“She did,” Isabelle told me. “In fact, they had a relationship for a short while.”
“They did?” I said, in disbelief.
“After we found out that Ted had another child and…a mistress…it took a while to process that, but once we did, Daphne was curious. So when Kristen contacted her—”
“Kristen contacted her?”
“Yes,” Isabelle replied. “She wanted to meet.”
“Daphne agreed?”
“She didn’t at first, but I think her curiosity won out,” Isabelle said. “Their first meeting was rocky. Daphne came home upset and angry, but she wasn’t angry with Kristen—just the situation and her father.”
“Why did Kristen want to meet Daphne?”
“That is a question you’ll have to ask Kristen, Jake,” Isabelle said gently. “I can’t answer that for you. I can tell you that Daphne liked Kristen very much and for a while there, she actually felt she had a sister.”
“But something changed,” I pointed out. “Because she never mentioned Kristen to me—ever.”
“No…” Isabelle sighed. “Discovering her father’s betrayal hurt her far more than it hurt me. She changed slightly with time, and she became…harder somehow. Her desire to join the military was a split-second decision that she made on a whim. I think for her it was a form of escapism. She just wanted to leave behind that part of her life and start anew somewhere else.”
I gulped back my hurt as I realized I had never asked her why she had enlisted, and she had never volunteered the story. Was it possible that my whole marriage had been a lie, too? If Daphne had not told me this huge chunk of her life, what else had she kept from me? Was I just another form of escapism? Was she just trying to replace the family she had lost with me?
“She loved you, Jake,” Isabelle said, as though she knew what I was thinking. “She loved you so much.”
“Just not enough to tell me the truth about her life.”
“You knew she had nothing more to do with her father.”
“But not that he had another woman and child secreted away somewhere… Why wouldn’t she tell me that?” I demanded.
“Because she wanted to put that behind her. She didn’t want to have to talk about it all the time,” Isabelle said. “That’s not an excuse, and I happen to believe it was the wrong decision. But it was her decision to make, and I had no choice but to go along with it. I was just happy she had found someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.”
“Only it turned out the rest of her life wasn’t going to be very long,” I snapped unnecessarily.
Isabelle fell silent, and I felt terrible instantly. “I’m sorry,” I said. “That was uncalled for.”
“You’re hurting right now,” she said gently. “I understand.”
“I wish I could say th
e same,” I said. “I’m just so…confused right now.”
“Talk to Kristen, Jake,” Isabelle advised me. “She’s the only one that can give you the closure you need.”
“She’s your husband’s love child,” I said. “How is it that you’re not pissed at her, too?”
Isabelle paused for a moment. “Because she was innocent in all this. It’s not fair to blame her for what her parents did. That was on them, not her. When she found out, she made it a point to track me down and tell me the truth.”