Chapter 4 - THE FATHER I THOUGHT ABANDONED ME
Table of Contents 6
It took six weeks for the placement to be approved.
Background checks were performed.
Jonathan was interviewed.
Household staff were interviewed.
I met with therapists, attorneys, and social workers until I felt as though every adult in New York knew my childhood.
Jonathan never complained.
More importantly, he never tried to speed things up by throwing his name around.
When I finally moved in, I brought one backpack.
Ethan stared at it.
"That's everything?"
"Pretty much."
He looked toward Jonathan.
I pointed at him.
"Don't."
Jonathan closed his mouth.
I knew exactly what he had been thinking.
Shopping.
Probably enough shopping to accidentally purchase a small country.
"I can buy my own things."
Jonathan nodded.
"Understood."
The following morning, twelve basic T-shirts mysteriously appeared in a hallway closet.
Nobody admitted responsibility.
I suspected the billionaire.
Living there felt strange.
I hoarded food in my bedroom for the first month.
Jonathan found crackers beneath my pillow once.
He didn't ask why.
The next day, a basket appeared on my desk filled with snacks.
No note.
No lecture.
I stopped hiding food eventually.
Ethan came home from rehabilitation using a wheelchair but could stand briefly with support. Every tiny improvement became a family event.
The first time he moved his left foot voluntarily, Jonathan nearly called three doctors.
The first time Ethan stood for thirty seconds, I cried.
He saw me.
"Are you crying?"
"Allergies."
"In February?"
"New York has aggressive pollen."
He laughed.
School was harder for me.
I'd missed weeks.
My grades were terrible.
People knew about the Central Park story because someone leaked details to the press. Reporters began calling me "the homeless hero who saved a billionaire's son."
I hated it.
I wasn't a hero.
I was a girl who happened to stop.
That shouldn't have been extraordinary.
Jonathan used his legal team to keep reporters away from me, but he never tried to control what I said.
Little by little, I began trusting him.
Then Angela arrived one afternoon with a folder.
She asked us to sit down.
"Lily, we found your biological father."
The words made no sense.
"My father left."
Angela looked at me carefully.
"His name is Daniel Carter?"
I nodded.
"He's alive."
I laughed because the alternative was screaming.
"I know he's alive."
"He lives in Vermont."
"So?"
"He says he's been looking for you."
That stopped me.
I stared at her.
"No."
Angela placed documents on the table.
My parents had separated when I was nine.
The story I'd grown up believing was simple: Daniel abandoned us for another woman.
The records told something different.
My mother had left New York during a bitter custody dispute.
Daniel sent letters.
Most were returned.
He filed motions.
Changed attorneys.
Hired an investigator.
Then someone told him my mother had taken me abroad.
Years passed.
After my mother's death, errors in the child welfare system listed my father as unreachable.
Nobody connected the records.
Daniel eventually believed I had died overseas.
"He remarried six years ago," Angela explained. "He has a son."
I stared at her.
"A son?"
"Your half brother is six."
I stood and walked away.
Jonathan didn't follow.
That mattered.
Ethan didn't either.
I locked myself in my bedroom.
For eleven days, I refused to call Daniel.
Angela gave me his number anyway.
On the twelfth night, I dialed.
He answered before the second ring.
"Hello?"
I couldn't speak.
Then his breathing changed.
"Lily?"
I hung up.
My hands shook for twenty minutes.
He didn't call back.
That mattered too.
He allowed me to choose.
The following evening, I tried again.
This time, I managed seven minutes.
"I thought you didn't want me."
Daniel started crying.
"I wanted you every day."
"Then why didn't you find me?"
Silence.
I expected excuses.
He gave me none.
"Because I failed."
Those words stayed with me.
We met three weeks later.
Daniel came to New York alone.
When I entered the room, he stood.
He had gray around his temples and the same crooked nose I saw every morning in the mirror.
His face crumpled.
But he didn't rush toward me.
"Can I hug you?"
I nodded.
His arms closed around me.
Suddenly I remembered pancakes shaped like rabbits.
A green bicycle.
His voice reading stories beside my bed.
Memories I had buried because believing he hated me hurt less than missing him.
I cried against his shoulder.
So did he.
Rebuilding didn't happen that day.
It began that day.
There was a difference.
I met his wife later.
Then my little brother Ben.
Ben stared at me for approximately thirty seconds before asking, "Do you know Minecraft?"
Apparently that was enough to establish blood relation.
Daniel offered to take me to Vermont.
I said no.
His disappointment showed.
But he accepted it.
Because something else had happened while I wasn't paying attention.
The Reed penthouse no longer felt like Jonathan's house.
When I walked through the door after meeting Daniel, Ethan shouted from the living room asking whether I wanted pizza.
Jonathan looked up from the kitchen.
"How did it go?"
I put my backpack down.
"Complicated."
He nodded.
"Dinner's in twenty minutes."
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing profound.
But I suddenly understood.
I had returned.
Not visited.
Returned.
And somewhere between hospital rooms, therapy appointments, terrible billionaire pancakes, arguments over schoolwork, and Ethan stealing my snacks, this ridiculous glass tower had become home.
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