Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
“Yes.” Cooper matched my smile with obvious admiration. “She was fresh out of uni at the time and ready to make a name for herself. But she had no experience. Not even as a law clerk or paralegal. Don’t feel bad, though. She’s a shark now.”
I didn’t doubt it.
“How long have you been married?”
“Eleven years. The twins are nine and absolute menaces.” Whenever he spoke about them, he glowed like they’d personally handed him the Nobel Prize. And, I realized, that energy extended to me, too. “We moved to Connecticut shortly after the trial, but I kept searching for you. I flew to Tokyo, Paris, Montreal, Zurich, Riyadh, Budapest. Anywhere I knew you’ve been. I even stumbled upon Surval Montreux, but by that time, you already graduated.”
“And changed my name,” I added, filling in the rest of the missing pieces. “I go by Briar now, and my film credits for work are just listed as Briar. I refuse to put Jason’s last name on anything I take pride in.”
“And you disabled your social media, changed your old phone numbers, and switched email addresses.”
“I didn’t want my parents to contact me. Not that they tried.”
“Every holiday season, Melinda and I take the kids to search for their sister. They love it.” He laughed, his eyes far off, trapped in a memory I couldn’t see. “Rose acts like it’s a treasure hunt. Brian used to, too, but he’s at the phase where merely existing is a chore.”
I joined his infectious laughter, thinking back to Brian’s sour pout. “More like everyone else’s existence is a chore.”
It struck me that I’d stumbled my way into an inside joke.
This, I realized, must be what family feels like. A secret language – built from a million tiny moments – that only we speak.
And somewhere along the way, Oliver and Sebastian had lost their fluency, letting it gather dust in the darkest corners of their hearts. I wondered how much Ollie missed it. Being accepted as a brother and son. Just one taste, and I’d already become addicted to being part of my family.
I rubbed the back of my neck, casting my eyes down to my sneakers. “Why did you keep searching for me even after you found out that I’m not your daughter?”
“Those bastards.”
My head whipped up. “Excuse me?”
“Jason and Philomena.” Their names dripped off his tongue like venom. His grip tightened on the edge of the sofa. “If those two ever showed you an ounce of the love you deserve, you wouldn’t be asking that question.”
I fidgeted on the cushion, caught between my desire to accept his comfort and the instinct to guard my heart. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll understand if you decide to have a child of your own.” Cooper offered me the sad smile of a man who’d made peace with his ghosts. “The moment you became my daughter, you inked yourself into my soul. Not for one day, or one year, or even one decade. Forever. That’s what being a parent is. A lifetime commitment. That paternity test? It’s just a fancy piece of paper. It doesn’t tell the real story.”
“And that is?”
“Family has nothing to do with blood. It’s about the people who enter your life and fill up empty spaces you didn’t know existed until you can’t imagine life without them.”
I raised a brow, unable to hide my incredulity. “I did that for you?”
Other than my boring academic accomplishments, my greatest childhood achievements included surviving three straight school years without eating a single vegetable (simply thanks to my parents’ neglect), hiding books under my pillow to read past midnight (not that my parents would’ve cared enough to stop me), and conjuring make-believe friends to keep me company (Philomena put an end to this after all the weird looks I got from talking to myself).
“Absolutely.” A full-bellied chuckle shook his frame. “Every time I found traces of you, it fueled me. I couldn’t even be upset when I missed you by mere weeks, because you always left a piece of yourself wherever you went. That library book you left behind in Tokyo with the silly sticky notes stuck inside. Or the unexpected nap you took in the middle of your Nutcracker performance in third grade. All fifteen thousand YouTube views are probably me. Or that rose mural you painted before leaving Budapest. I wondered if you’d grow up to become an artist.”
“You saw that?”
“I did. It was my screensaver for years before Rose swapped it with a close-up selfie of the insides of her nostrils.” A faint smile found the edges of his lips. “I saw all the pieces of you that you left behind, and I loved every one of them.”
“And you never gave up.”
I still didn’t believe it. After a lifetime of being an afterthought, this felt like hearing about someone else’s life, not my own. Cooper couldn’t be any more different than Jason and Philomena. Those two made an art form out of parental neglect.