Envelope 28
Author's Note: Thank you for following along, please review.
WWWWWWWWWWWWW
The knock at his door came about the same time that Chloe walked into his kitchen and through to his living room.
"Someone we don't know?" Don asked as he watched the woman walk past him.
"Yes," Chloe said seriously as she marched into the living room. Don knew Mo would be taking up a position at the side of the house.
Don looked at the kids, Agnes colouring at the table and Christopher smashing peas in his highchair and attempting to find his mouth. He walked closer to his children and undid the harness holding Christopher in the chair in case he needed to grab and go and leaned over the stove to turn off the perogies that were boiling for dinner.
His mother had called him on his drive home to ask about the test results and he'd filled her in on some of the details they were piecing together. She was confused and upset for him, but there was this brimming excitement as well in her voice that Don was worried would be quashed if the results came back anything but he was Agnes' father. She'd also suggested the cooked and cooled peas as a means to keep Christopher in his highchair happy while Don got dinner each night and they, so far, were a hit.
He heard the door open, a quick conversation, then it shut.
Chloe appeared at the kitchen door.
"It's legal, he has ID, but you need to receive it," Chloe said, knowing it was the paternity test coming a day earlier than her boss expected.
Don's eyes went wide and he nodded. He walked with her to the front door, took the sealed envelope, signed, and shut the door.
Chloe was not stupid, she had seen what was on the news and knew what had been going on with his family.
"How about I keep an eye on your kids while you…" she didn't finish.
Don nodded and walked with the envelope to the stairs where he sat down on a step and broke the seal on the envelope.
He pulled out the one sheet and looked at the results.
The first words that he saw were The alleged father is not excluded as the biological father of the tested child.
Don's brow furrowed and his vision got a little blurry. He scanned the paper and saw a lot of numbers then his eye caught something in bold on the page. Probability of Paternity: 99.9998%
And, in that moment, all of the 'holding it together' he had been doing was like a floodgate that opened. He sobbed. Out of relief, confusion, loss, joy, anger, and clarity. It was overwhelming. He literally couldn't stop gasping when he felt a small hand on his arm, and he looked up to see his daughter through blurry, watery eyes. She looked scared, she had never seen her father cry, never mind, cry like this.
"Daddy?" She asked cautiously as she ducked under his arms and wrapped her own arms around his neck hugging him. "Don't be sad."
Don reached for her and hugged her close and tried to allay her fears.
"I'm not sweetie, I'm…I'm really happy," Don said as he hugged her and wiped at his eyes and the snot dripping from his nose. "Daddy is happy."
She pulled back and looked at his face and assessed him.
He smiled at her even though the tears kept flowing down his cheeks. "I'm really happy Agnes."
Her brow furrowed and she looked just like him in that moment; how could he not have seen that her face was Liz, but her expressions were him?
"Remember when you came home from school and saw your new playset all set up outside with the tent and…"
She nodded.
"Remember when you were so happy you cried, you said it was so beautiful?" Don asked her as he looked into her eyes.
Agnes nodded.
"Well, I just found out the best news and that's why I'm crying," Don said. "Happy crying."
She nodded seriously. "What is making you happy cry?"
Don cleared his throat, every parenting book and website probably had better advice on how to do this well, but she needed to know before anyone else. It was her right.
"You know how mommy is your mommy and Christopher's mommy?" Don started.
She nodded.
"And how I am Christopher's daddy, but another daddy helped make you?"
Agnes nodded.
"Well, you are my little girl regardless of who helped make you," Don said, wanting to reassure her of their relationship. "But I just found out that not only am I the daddy that helped make Christopher, but I'm the daddy that helped make you."
She looked at him confused.
"Honey, do you understand what I'm saying?" Don asked.
She furrowed her brow more.
"Agnes?" Don asked, suddenly worried he should have read something before telling her.
"You and mommy and another daddy made Agnes cake?" Agnes asked.
Don smiled. "No, just me and mommy made Agnes cake."
"What about the other daddy, the daddy who died?" Agnes asked.
"He helped raise you when you were very little, and he kept you safe," Don said, trying not to take away Tom's impact on her life.
Agnes nodded.
"Do you understand sweetie?"
"You made an Agnes cake with mommy…but forgot?" Agnes asked.
Don took a deep breath, he couldn't be honest about this part.
"We made a cake, but you needed to be older before I could find out that I helped make your particular cake," Don said, not sure the cake analogy was working here.
Agnes had an image of her father walking around a big room looking at all the cakes trying to find her.
"You are my…everything daddy?"
Don smiled at her.
"Yes, everything daddy," Don said. "Are you okay with that?"
She looked at him with an expression that he could only chalk up to 'of course, you idiot.'
"Okay," Agnes said as she wiped at his tears.
"Okay," Don chuckled as he pulled her in for another hug and then watched her go back to the kitchen to colour.
He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and looked back at the paper. He had been right, they had been drugged, it still didn't explain that fact that Liz, if she didn't know, should have been damn suspicious. And if she was suspicious, why hadn't she said anything, anything at all to him. He knew he had been a prick for a long time but a possible child they shared? That trumped everything in his books. He was having trouble reconciling her possibly keeping Agnes from him and he needed more time to sit with that.
Don scrubbed at his eyes. The lawyers would have got the results, as well as the court about the same time as him so he expected a call that court would be back in session tomorrow.
He took his phone from his pocket and quickly texted his family and his friends a message that read: She's mine. I'll need some time.
Then he turned off his phone and went back to the kitchen to finish supper.
Hours later, after he had tucked his children in bed, he pulled out an album of pictures Agnes had in her room that Liz or possibly Tom had made when she was younger. He'd glanced at it when they moved in and placed it on her shelf, she would need it more than he would. Now, he needed to take a better look.
In it, there was one picture of him holding her as a baby at her christening. He remembered being worried he would look like an idiot not holding her right. He's held her in the hospital a couple of times, but no one had taken any pictures then.
He flipped a couple more pages and saw another picture of him and Agnes on the floor together she was using him as an obstacle to crawl over. He had dropped off a file at Liz and Tom's place, generally he avoided it, but he couldn't this one time. Liz had been home alone with Agnes and had invited him inside. He didn't want to, but had. Then Liz showed him Agnes crawling and told him to lay on the ground next to Agnes on his back. He felt ridiculous but had taken off his coat and his gun and lay down in his shirt and tie on their carpet and watched Agnes crawl toward him and over him like he was a speed bump. It made him laugh for the first time that week. Agnes picked up on the game and crawled back over him again. At some point, Liz must have snapped a picture, because he was too busy being still and putting his hands up as guards to keep Agnes from falling as she crawled over him.
He flipped through some more pictures of Tom and Liz and Agnes and then saw another one. He was holding Agnes at a Christmas party they had for their small group at Canaries down the street from the post office. He was standing and Agnes was asleep drapped over his shoulder while he was talking with Cooper and holding a beer. He remembered Liz handing him Agnes so she could go to the washroom and he had rocked her to sleep so she stayed with him like that for about an hour. His arm and shoulder were numb when Liz took her from him to leave and go home, Tom was waiting outside. She must have taken a picture at some point.
And as he flipped through the album, he saw more and more pictures of him and Agnes, more than Agnes with anyone else besides Liz or Tom. And, he realized as he looked at the pictures, that Liz had invited him to her home or parks or other places a lot when Tom wasn't around. He assumed she may have shared their history with Tom, and it would be awkward, but now, as he looked at the images of him and Agnes it told a different story.
Don put the album down and walked back up to Agnes' room and took another photo album, the only other one he knew about, off her shelf and brought it back downstairs with him. These were images he was more familiar with, ones from when she was in a coma and they had all made it their mission to spend time with Agnes and document what Liz was missing.
Don smiled at the pictures and kept turning pages and then he saw one he hadn't seen before that Liz must have taken after coming out of her coma. Him and Agnes sitting on the couch reading a book. Then another, him and Agnes holding hands as they walked ahead of her on the sidewalk, then another and another and another. All after Tom was gone, all taken without him knowing because he was busy doing something with Agnes. Don would like to think that these pictures spelled out heavy involvement in her life from a young age, but they did not. Liz seemed to literally take a picture every single time he and Agnes were together. He may have seen Agnes once a month, maybe.
He closed the book and swallowed hard. Liz knew, whether she acknowledged it, knew for sure, or suspected, there was a level of 'knowing' that these pictures seemed to spell out that he hadn't noticed before.
When was she going to tell him? In Wyoming? Was she ever going to tell him? Don sat back with his head resting against the wall and closed his eyes. It was hard when you had questions that needed answers and no one to supply them. It was hard when you seemed to be able to hallucinate her into existence some days, and couldn't will it to happen others.
And, although it was good knowing, really knowing, Agnes was his, it was also difficult to reconcile 5 years that he wasn't a father to his child. The five years he was Uncle Don. The fact that he and Liz had crossed that line years before Christopher. The fact that he and Liz had, in essence, been sexually assaulted but an unknown person or group of people by creating the situation where they took advantage of each other. The fact that he and Liz had returned to their romantic and sexual encounters with each other after Tom was gone, on and off, over the years culminating in Christopher on that one night, what he thought was the first night, but had not been.
Don spent a long time sitting on the couch with his thoughts and the albums before he turned out the lights, climbed the stairs to his room and went to bed. As he lay there in the dark, he looked at his hand resting on the empty pillow next to him and the glint of the gold band as it caught the light and he remembered Liz's words "For better or for worse" as she turned the ring on his finger.
To be continued….