With my sisters on my father’s side, I don’t have any relationship to speak of. Nothing that I like to remember, at least. But with Charlie, it’s different. It was always different. Even if Eleanor followed the same exact playbook as her ex-husband, trying to pit her new kid against her old one—the purebred heir versus the unfortunate mutt born from a youthful indiscretion—Charlie never bit. He was always too kind, too sweet. A gentle soul, one even Eleanor couldn’t ruin.
Neither could Tom, though he tried.
“I overheard the call,” Charlie speaks up eventually, still transfixed by the child growing inside me. His niece or nephew, he must be realizing. “I asked Mom about it. She kept saying you made it up, that there was no way…” His lips press into a tight, angry line. “I got mad. We had
