Eight Years Later, I Returned for Christmas with the Four Children He Never Knew Were His

“This conversation is not happening in front of the children,” I said.

Marcus’s father, Harold, appeared from the dining room doorway. He looked thinner than I remembered, his silver hair combed carefully, his Christmas sweater slightly crooked at the collar. He stared at the children, then at me, and his expression held something I had not expected.

Shame.

“Kesha,” he said quietly. “There’s a sitting room down the hall. The children can have cocoa there.”

“No,” Ethan said immediately.

I looked down.

His small jaw had tightened. That same jaw. Marcus’s jaw. “We came with Mom.”

“And you’re staying with me,” I assured him. “But grown-up conversations can be boring.”

Sophia whispered, “Or scary.”

I knelt in front of them, smoothing Olivia’s coat sleeve, brushing snow from Noah’s hair. “Nothing scary is going to happen. You are safe. You are loved. And we’re only staying as long as we choose to stay.”

Noah studied my face. He was the oldest by six minutes and acted as if that gave him responsibility for the others. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

A teenage girl I didn’t recognize stepped forward from behind the Christmas tree. She had Patricia’s eyes and a shy, uncertain smile. “I can take them. I’m Rachel. Their cousin, I guess.”

The words came out awkwardly, but kindly.

Patricia made a faint sound at “cousin,” as if the word had opened another door inside her.

I looked at Rachel. “Thank you.”

The children hesitated, then followed her toward the sitting room. Olivia looked back once at Marcus.

“You didn’t answer,” she said.

Marcus flinched.

When they were gone, the room exhaled.

Celeste turned toward Marcus fully. “I need the truth.”

He ran a hand down his face. “I didn’t know.”