The Paper Swan(89)

Damian emptied the entire folder on me. When it was done, and the last sheet flitted to the bed, the fear I’d felt about his reaction was replaced by something else, a sense of outrage that he could presume to stuff everything I’d been through since the island, into one shiny, glossy folder and throw it all in my face.

“You want to know why I didn’t tell you about Sierra?” I asked. “Because this is what you do, Damian.” I scrunched up the papers in my fists. “You research, you plan, you plot your way to vengeance. I had a photo of Sierra when I came to see you in prison. I wanted you to know we had a daughter. My father was gone. I thought there was no one left to fight, but I was wrong. I was wrong, Damian, because you were still fighting. You’re always fighting! You put my father in the grave, but I came anyway, to give you a daughter. But there was no room for us because you were still the same. Still wrestling with your demons. And if you think you know everything there is to know about me from this report, I have news for you. You don’t have a clue, Damian.”



I didn’t realize I was pregnant until I went for a follow-up appointment for my shoulder, and the doctor asked me the date of my last period. I had thought it was stress-related, or perhaps my cycle was off because I had missed a few weeks of my birth control pills, but the blood test confirmed it. It had been a bittersweet revelation, given that the baby’s father and grandfather, Damian and Warren, were embroiled in a ceaseless battle that was being played out in the courts.

Everywhere I went, photographers flashed their cameras in my face. How would they twist the story if they knew I was having Damian’s child? If they knew I was in love with my kidnapper? What would my father say? He was convinced I was going through some kind of mental and emotional breakdown. Would he try to coerce me into having an abortion? Failing that, could he have a psychiatrist declare me incompetent? Force me to give up the baby? How would Damian react to the news? He was going to prison. For how long, I didn’t know, but I knew that it would only make it harder.

I kept the pregnancy to myself, and as difficult as it was, the thought of a new life emerging out of all the chaos was like a beacon of light that got me through the darkness. I sat through long sessions with Nick and my father, hugging my little secret, while they discussed the charges and legal strategies. I wanted the case wrapped up before I started showing so I went through the motions. Yes to this, no to this, yes to this. I sat through Damian’s sentence hearing, four months pregnant, knowing that I had a piece of him, and no matter how wrong or warped or crazy everyone else would think it was, it felt right.

When my father realized I was pregnant, he could not hide his disappointment. He was convinced Damian had used me to get back at him, that getting me pregnant had been a part of his plan, his ultimate revenge against my father. How deluded we become when we start believing that everything in the world is about us. How hard we work to make things fit into our made-up theories. How blindly we follow our worked-up emotions, the good, the bad and the ugly. My father would believe what he wanted. Damian would believe what he wanted. I could either let myself be ripped in half between them, or accept that I would never be able to change their way of looking at things.

At times, I questioned my own sanity. Was I wrong? Had I been naive and trusting? Had Damian played me all along? He couldn’t bring himself to kill me, so had he done the next best thing? Drive a wedge between my father and the one person that meant the most to him? Me. Had he really planned to send me back, carrying his child, so my father would have to live with it the rest of his life?

Used, my father said.

I thought of what Damian and I had shared, the way he looked at me, the way he touched me, and I thought no. An absolute, soul-rooted, emphatic no. I couldn’t think of anything more beautiful, more life affirming than Damian’s lips on mine—his body, my body, melded into one. And now I had a part of him, a part of MaMaLu, to look after, and that’s exactly what I did. Damian had hurt me, my father had hurt me, but I loved them both. No doubt, they felt I had let them down too, but I didn’t want to stay lodged between them, not when I had a new life to think about.

When someone started undercutting Sedgewick stock by selling significant shares at a lower cost and devaluing the company, I suspected Damian was behind it. Investors panicked and started offloading their stock, alarmed by plummeting figures. It didn’t take long for my father to trace it back to Damian, but Rafael had done such a good job of covering up the paper trail that there was no substantial evidence against Damian.