Chapter 2 - THE OTHER BIRTHDAY
Daniel did not answer his phone.
Claire called six times.
Straight to voicemail.
The company apartment building manager confirmed Daniel had left ninety minutes earlier.
No destination listed.
Claire wanted to search everything.
Instead she stopped.
The apartment was Daniel’s private space, but this room clearly involved their daughter.
She photographed what was visible.
Then took Lily home.
Lily cried in the car.
“Is Emma another kid?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Dad have another daughter?”
“I don’t know.”
Every answer made Claire feel worse.
At home, she checked Lily’s room.
The jewelry box was still there.
Owl pillow.
Books.
Paper stars.
Everything.
The apartment copies had been purchased or recreated separately.
Then Lily noticed something.
“My old purple lamp is gone.”
Claire looked.
The lamp had disappeared months earlier.
Daniel said it broke.
He had replaced it with a newer one.
Claire checked old photos from the apartment.
The hidden room contained the purple lamp.
Not a duplicate.
The original.
Then Claire checked other things.
A red cardigan Lily outgrew at seven.
Missing from a donation box.
A cracked snow globe from kindergarten.
Daniel claimed he threw it away.
A set of wooden alphabet blocks Claire had packed for charity.
Gone.
All visible in the apartment photographs.
Daniel had been removing pieces of Lily’s childhood from their home.
Not valuables.
Objects.
Specific ones.
Then Claire found the strangest duplicate.
A framed photograph from Lily’s second-grade school picture.
Same pose.
Same blue background.
But at the apartment, someone had placed a different photograph behind it.
Only one corner was visible.
Claire zoomed in.
A little girl.
Blonde.
Not Lily.
Claire searched Daniel’s cloud photo library.
Nothing.
Then she remembered an old storage box Daniel never let anyone open.
“College stuff,” he said.
It sat in the basement.
Claire opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Daniel at nineteen.
A young woman Claire did not recognize.
And a baby girl.
On the back of one photo:
DAN + MAYA + EMMA — FIRST CHRISTMAS.
Claire sat on the basement floor.
May you like
Daniel had not hidden an apartment.
He had hidden a child.
