**Part 2**
At 11 p.m., Robert was already in bed watching television.
“I’m going downstairs for some tea.”
“Now?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“I’ll come.”
“No. Stay.”
He studied me, then nodded.
I took the stairs instead of the elevator.
The waiter was waiting outside the back entrance. His name tag read Evan.
“You didn’t hear this from me,” he said.
“Just tell me.”
“I’ve seen your husband here several times.”
My chest tightened.
“With another woman?”
He hesitated. “A young woman.”
After 40 years, there it was.
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long has this been happening?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe two years.”
Two years.
We had spent the previous year planning this anniversary while Robert apparently already knew every hallway in the hotel.
“How young is she?”
“Early 20s, maybe.”
I grabbed the railing.
Robert was 65.
I felt sick.
“Did they stay together?”
Evan’s expression changed.
“You think they were having an affair?”
“What else am I supposed to think?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Mr. Harris booked the room under his name, but he never stayed overnight.”
“How do you know?”
“I work late. I’ve seen him leave.”
“Then why was he paying for her room?”
Evan hesitated.
Before he could answer, a familiar voice came from behind me.
“You really want to know?”
I turned.
Robert stood in the doorway.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then I asked, “Who is she?”
Robert looked at Evan. “You should go.”
Evan disappeared inside.
I folded my arms. “Who is she?”
Robert looked exhausted.
“Her name is Ariella.”
“I didn’t ask her name.”
“She’s 23.”
“You’re not really answering my question.”
“She’s my granddaughter.”
I actually laughed.
“Your what?”
“My granddaughter.”
“Robert, we have three grandchildren. I know all of them.”
His face tightened. “There’s another one.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Whose child?”
He swallowed. “My son’s.”
I stared at him.
“You don’t have a son. We only have two daughters.”
“I didn’t know I did.”
I stepped back.
Robert reached toward me.
“Don’t touch me.”
I said, “Start talking.”
So he did.
Before meeting me, Robert had dated a woman named Helen for less than a year.
Robert was 22.
They broke up, and he moved away for work.
A few months later, he met me.
What Robert never knew was that Helen had been pregnant when they separated.
She never told him.
She gave birth to a son named Mike.
“And your granddaughter told you all this?”
“Yes.”
“How does she know?”
“Helen told her.”
Mike had grown up never knowing who his father was. Helen apparently planned to tell him eventually.
She thought she had time.
Then Mike died unexpectedly three years ago.
He was 41.
He had an undiagnosed heart problem.
His daughter, Ariella, was 21.
After Mike died, Helen was consumed 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, and everything she remembered about him.
She also admitted she’d 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.”
I looked away.
“So she came looking for you.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She found me online.”
“And you are really sure that she is your granddaughter?”
“At first, I thought it was a scam.”
“Then what?”
“We did a DNA test.”
“And?”
Robert looked at me. “She is my granddaughter.”
My legs suddenly felt weak, so I sat on a bench near the entrance.
Robert remained standing.
“How long have you known?”
He took too long to answer.
“How long?”
“For almost two years.”
“Two years?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“What happened the first time she contacted you?”
“I was confused.”
“And after the DNA test?”
“I was in shock.”
“And after you met her?”
I looked at him.
“How many times have you seen her?”
“Eight.”
“Eight?”
“Maybe nine.”
“You don’t know?”
“I know. It’s eight.”
“Eight times you came here.”
He said nothing.
“Enough times that the receptionist knows you.”
“Yes.”
“And you paid for her room.”
“She lives four hours away. I didn’t want her paying for a hotel just to see me.”
“Why here?”
“It was a neutral place.”
I laughed bitterly. “Neutral? This is where we spent our honeymoon.”
“I knew the hotel. I knew it was safe.”
“You could have chosen any hotel.”
“I know.”
“Did it ever occur to you that bringing your secret granddaughter to our honeymoon hotel might be strange?”
“Every time.”
“Then why keep doing it?”
“Because the first meeting happened here. After that, she preferred coming somewhere familiar.”
“So you’d meet her and leave?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
He almost looked offended.
“We talked.”
“About what?”
“Mike. She wanted to know whether things he did came from me.”
Robert’s voice softened.
“She asked whether I was good at math because he was terrible at it.”
His eyes filled.
“I couldn’t answer most of it.”
For a moment, I tried to understand the grief he must have carried—learning he’d had a son only after that son was already gone.
Then my anger returned.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of what you’d think. Of Helen. Of Mike. Of me.”
“You didn’t know he existed.”
“I know.”
“Then why would I blame you?”
“I didn’t know.”
“So instead you lied.”
“I kept putting it off.”
“Like Helen did.”
“She kept postponing the truth because she thought she had time,” I said. “You knew exactly what that cost her, and you did the same thing to me.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
He couldn’t answer.
I started toward the hotel.
Robert followed.
“Irene.”
I stopped.
“You haven’t called me that all night.”
“What?”
“My name.”
He looked confused.
“You keep saying you were afraid, you were shocked, you didn’t know how. Everything is about how hard this was for you.”
“Irene…”
“You found out you had a son. You found out he’d died before you ever met him. You found a granddaughter. I understand that this was devastating.”
“It was.”
“But you had a wife.”
He lowered his head.
“You had someone who had spent 40 years standing beside you. And you decided this part of your life was none of my business.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It was exactly like that.”
