‘Did you tell Mum about your theory?’ he asks.
‘Yeah…’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said you’re my dad, and that’s the end of it. She was more annoyed about me reading the letters.’
He slides my mug towards me. ‘You won’t let this go, will you? No matter how much we try to convince you?’
‘I don’t know how you can be so sure.’
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘We do a paternity test.’
‘What?’
‘You can get them online these days.’ He pulls his phone out of his back pocket. ‘Will that put an end to all this?’
I’m not sure how I feel about it. ‘I guess so.’
My drink is too hot. I blow in it while Dad scrolls and taps away at the screen.
‘Right, that’s ordered,’ he says. ‘Now we need to have a talk about respecting people’s privacy…’
‘Tell me what happened,’ says Chloe as we flop on her bed.
‘Remember you said there might be letters from Will at Mum’s house?’
She leans forward. ‘You found some?’
I get my phone out and call up the photos I took of all the letters. I pick one at random and zoom in.
Chloe reads it: ‘“Dear Milly” – I told you she was Milly!’
‘I know, right?’
She flicks through the photos. ‘Jeez, how many are there? What do they say?’
‘Loads. Mostly, he’s telling her how much he misses her while he’s away on tour and they’re madly in love, but then there are all these letters where they’ve broken up. He’s apologising for all the things he’s done wrong and begging her to talk. Here, read this one, it’s the last one.’ I hand her my phone and read over her shoulder.
18th July 1999
Dear Milly,
I know you don’t want me to contact you. This is the last letter, I promise. I don’t want to make you cry anymore. I want you to be happy.
I want you to know how sorry I am. It has been a weird few years and I’m not sure I’m coping with it all that well. Especially now we’re not together, butI wanted to say thank you for everything and thank you for last night. I know the circumstances weren’t great, but to be with you again and feel your body close to mine and know you cared enough to do that after everything I’ve put you through. It meant the world to me. You mean the world to me.
I know it’s a cliché, but…
I’ll always love you,
W
x
I can almost see the cogs whirring in her brain.
‘You think he’s your dad, don’t you?’ she asks.