Page 71 of Dr. Billionaire's Fake Marriage

Halie heads back to the door but stops and turns around. "I know you must resent me for taking your mother's place."

"No!" I cut her before she could speak further. "I do not resent you, Halie. If I did, I wouldn't be in your home, and I do not blame you for my father's mistake." I continue, "I blame my father for his mistake and have forgiven him."

I get out of bed and take her hand. Her brown eyes look slowly at me. "You have been good to me since I got here, and your lovely twins are my brothers. Nothing will change that."

She beams as I pull her closer for a hug. I hold her hand as we both go to the dining room.

The twins say their “good mornings” in unison. Now that my Dad has told me how he differentiates them, I can tell which is Aden and which is Adam.

Father comes in through the front door with mud in his hair. He is holding a watering can and hoe; his rubber gloves still have dirt on them. "You still grow herbs?" I ask.

Mother had told me how my father used to be obsessed with herbs; I never thought he would still have the same obsession.

“Yes,” Father replies, “but it is not an obsession like Jesse says it is.”

I smile and say, “Now that you mentioned it, I think Mom was right. It is an obsession."

My father laughs as he places the watering can in an empty room, where he keeps his gardening equipment and grows seedlings in plastic bags. Halie takes the twins to prepare them for a neighbor's birthday party.

Aden’s and Adam's protests against going to the party fall on deaf ears. They think they are older now, reminding her that they are fifteen years old and don't need to go to a fourteen-year-old’s party.

Halie doesn't listen to her children as she grudgingly makes them go upstairs to prepare while they both rant.

I walk behind my father as we enter the room opposite the gardening room. The room is a library - a huge one.

I run my fingers over the books neatly arranged on the shelf and see my father's medical award, the one with the Wallace stamp on it. I see a picture of his younger self with someone who looks just like Troy. "This is Mr. Robinson, right?" I ask Father.

“Yes,” he replies, “we took this picture in college.”

I take my time to look around the library. The library is darker than the rest of the rooms I have been in, and when my eyes fall on the darker shade of the window drapes, I figure that might be the cause.

My eyes fall on a few awards, ones with Aden and Adam's names on them. "You got yourself some geniuses!" I compliment Father as I read the remarkable academic notes written about my step-brothers.

"I have always had geniuses," Father brags, "and you are the first of them."

I walk around the fiction section and see a familiar knitted wool item hanging behind a shelf. "This," I say, looking at my father for confirmation, "is Mother's?"

Father agrees. “Yes,” he answers.

"Mom made sweatshirts for you," I recall. "She always makes something for you on your birthday. I never thought she would send them." I can feel my chest tightening as I hold back the tears.

All my life, I had thought my mother was pathetic for always knitting things for Father on his birthdays. I thought she was insane for making things for a man she would never see, but I was wrong.

Mother always sends the shirts and mufflers, and I cannot determine which is the more heartbreaking.

"I regret leaving, Camile," Father tells me. "I know you have been dying to ask me if I regret leaving you and Jesse behind. Yes, I do regret it every waking day."

I hold the sweatshirt my mother knitted in my hands. “I never thought she sent this,” I say. “I always thought she was crazy for knitting your birthday presents. I hated her so much for it.”

“You don’t have to.” Father take my hand as I stroke the knitted shirts.

"Not anymore." I look up at him. "I don't hate her anymore; I am just glad she wasn't knitting them to stack up in the basement." I chuckle as I hold the knitted wool with fondness.

“How did she get them to you if she didn’t know where you live?” I finally ask the question roaming in my mind.

Father looks to the door as if making sure Halie is not around. Then it hits me that Halie doesn't know my mother sends her husband birthday gifts every year.

"It was a pact we both made." My father's face lights up as he starts to speak. "Before you were born, we made a pact to send each other birthday presents every year, even if we got divorced or separated."

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