Chapter 7 - THE BIRTHDAYS HE NEVER KNEW ABOUT
"Before you get promoted," Isa informed Blake, "there are rules."
They were sitting in the hospital cafeteria while Clare completed preoperative tests upstairs. Isa had refused the expensive toy he'd offered her and instead requested a notebook with a purple cover. She now opened it on the table between them like a judge preparing to read a verdict.
"Rule one: If you promise pancakes, you have to make pancakes. Not tell somebody else to make them."
"Reasonable."
"Rule two: Never say you're coming if you aren't coming. Mommy already has enough people telling her things that don't happen."
Blake felt the remark behind his ribs. "That one's important."
"Rule three: If I'm mad, you can't buy me a pony."
He blinked. "Was that a possibility?"
"I don't know how rich you are. Mrs. Alvarez said your coat costs more than the bakery's refrigerator."
"Mrs. Alvarez has excellent judgment. And for the record, I wouldn't buy you a pony without asking your mother."
Isa drew a star beside his answer. "You can move up above Mr. Collins."
It was his first performance review that mattered more than any annual shareholder letter. Blake had started reading books about becoming a father, but none explained how to mourn birthdays that were already over. He'd asked Clare for photographs, not to claim the years as his, but to learn who Isa had been when she first lost a tooth or discovered that snow was cold enough to sting.
Clare had shown him a video of a three-year-old Isa singing to a lopsided cake. Blake watched the recording twice. The third time, Clare turned the phone over because they were both crying.
Now a nurse called from the cafeteria entrance. "Ms. Bennett is ready."
Clare sat in the consultation room with Dr. Patel and a nurse coordinator. They discussed the surgical team's review, anticipated hospital stay, treatment afterward, and who could legally receive information. Clare chose Mrs. Alvarez as an emergency contact, then, after a pause long enough to make Blake stop breathing, added his name.
"As Isa's father," she said. "Not as someone making medical decisions for me."
"Understood," he replied.
Later, Clare agreed that he and Isa could establish paternity through a reputable clinic. She asked her own lawyer, Nina Torres, to review the consent and future paperwork. Blake accepted every condition. He had enough power in other rooms. He didn't need to turn this one into a battle.
On the way out of the clinic, Blake nearly bought a stuffed bear from the hospital gift shop. It was enormous, soft, and entirely unnecessary. He stood there holding it until Clare asked what he was doing. "Trying not to replace six years with presents," he admitted. She glanced at the bear, then at him. "You could learn what she actually wants." He put it back. That night, Isa told him she wanted to visit the aquarium and learn whether octopuses dreamed. He reserved ordinary admission tickets, not a private tour. The distinction mattered more to Clare than he had first understood: their daughter could have wonderful experiences without growing up as a special project managed by wealth.
The DNA results arrived the following week. He opened them in Nina's office while Clare watched from the opposite end of the table. The report confirmed their relationship. His hands shook anyway.
"I knew," he said.
"Knowing is different from seeing it written down," Clare answered.
He hadn't realized how much he'd feared that an absurd twist of biology might take Isa away just as he'd begun to love her. Clare saw it on his face and softened.
"I didn't need a test to know who her father was," she said. "I needed to know we would both protect her once everyone else knew."
They agreed to begin with something deliberately unglamorous: school pickup authorization, an updated emergency contact form, and scheduled afternoons that wouldn't interrupt Isa's routines. Nina would help them formalize paternity without rushing into other legal arrangements.
Blake's staff found the arrangement bewildering. His personal assistant asked whether he wanted a nanny, a child psychologist, a house in Connecticut, and security upgrades to three locations. Blake requested only a calendar that accurately showed when he could pick Isa up from school. Then he called Clare to double-check it.
On their first official afternoon, Isa brought him to the public library to return a book two days late. She insisted on paying the fine with the coins from her own pocket.
"You know I could cover twenty cents," Blake offered.
"It's my consequence," she said, sounding so much like Clare that he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.
They read a book about deep-sea creatures and stopped for soup on the walk home. Halfway through lunch, Isa asked the question he'd been waiting for and dreading.
"Did you not want a kid before you met me?"
He set his spoon down. "I didn't know you were here. But I wanted a family with your mother. When I lost her, I thought that future was gone."
"Could you have found us?"
"I tried for a while. Then I believed something that wasn't true, and I stopped trying. I wish I hadn't."
She considered his answer. "Mommy says brave people can still be wrong."
"She's right about most things."
"Not everything. She thinks raisins belong in cookies."
When he brought Isa home, Clare stood at the apartment door, looking rested for the first time in days. Isa ran to her and announced that Blake could make up one missed birthday at a time, beginning with the year she was born. The first gift she wanted was a story about the day her parents met.
Clare leaned against the doorway. "You'd better give the embarrassing version," she told Blake.
"There are several."
"Start with the toaster."
That evening, after Isa fell asleep, Blake found a voicemail from Silas. The lawyer sounded almost friendly. He advised Blake to abandon his questions about the Bennett settlement before the company suffered irreparable damage.
"People will understand a private mistake," Silas said. "They won't forgive a public scandal involving a child. Think carefully about what you protect."
May you like
Blake saved the message and forwarded it to Rachel and Nina. Then he called his security director to ensure nobody could obtain Isa's school information through company systems.
He had missed six birthdays. He was not going to miss the moment when being her father required more than love.
