“Yes.”
“How does she know?”
“Helen told her.”
He explained that Mike grew up without knowing who his father was.
Helen apparently intended to tell him someday.
She thought she had time.
Then Mike died unexpectedly three years ago.
He was 41.
He had a heart problem no one knew he had.
His daughter, Ariella, was 21.
After Mike died, Helen was crushed by guilt.
She had lost her chance to tell her son the truth.
So she told Ariella instead.
She gave her Robert’s full name.
Where he’d grown up.
What she remembered about him.
She admitted she had never told Robert about the pregnancy.
“Why tell Ariella?” I asked.
“Because she said she couldn’t die with the secret too.”
“And then?”
“Helen died a year after Mike died.”
Robert rubbed his face.
“Ariella lost her father. Then her grandmother. They were basically her whole family.”
“Basically?”
“Her mother left when she was little.”
