Page 75 of The Perfect Secret

Hannah looked at her dinner plate before meeting her grandmother’s gaze. “He told you?”

Sylvia’s expression softened. “Hannah, he was so pleased, he cried on the phone to me. I don’t think you realize what your forgiveness means to him.”

“I haven’t fully forgiven him yet.”

“I know. He knows it too. But you will. In the meantime, you’ve helped him.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dan stood in the living room, looked at his watch, and glanced at Tess’s door, which was still closed. He tapped his foot and pulled out his phone. Glancing again at her closed door, he scrolled through emails. Finally, he gave up.

“Tess, we need to go or we’ll be late!”

As expected, there was no answer. Two minutes later, her door opened. “I just have to fix my hair.”

He bit his tongue rather than ask why she hadn’t already fixed it. Fathers of fifteen-year-old girls knew better than to ask those questions. With a sigh, he sat on the sofa. Five minutes later, she emerged.

“You look beautiful. Ready to go?”

Actually, she looked no different than earlier that day, but having already proven he was no dummy when it came to parenting teenaged girls, he didn’t mention it.

Tess headed to the door, Dan behind her. She was silent the entire trip to school. Only when she found her friends who were also displaying their work at the art show in the school commons did she smile and talk. Never once to Dan.

He greeted the other parents he recognized, introduced himself once again to her art teacher, helped himself to some snacks, and wandered the show. Tess’s work was fantastic. Her charcoal drawings of people were phenomenal. But it was her last piece that knocked the breath out of him.

It was a portrait of him and Hannah at the pumpkin farm. The field was in the background. She’d captured them mid-stride, Hannah holding one of the pumpkins. Dan held her hand.The entire picture was charcoal, except for the pumpkin, which she’d colored with pastel.

His vision blurred. It was the most stunning picture he’d seen.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Her art teacher walked over and talked about the portrait as if its existence was the most natural thing in the world.

He could only nod and he gripped his cane so hard he’d swear the wooden handle became one with his palm.

The art teacher moved on. Dan willed himself to walk away. Anywhere, as long as it was far from this portrait. At the refreshment table, he pretended to be interested in the sweets—as the ones he’d already eaten roiled his stomach—until his heart rate returned to normal and his palms stopped sweating. It took another minute or two to release his hold on his cane, and he opened and closed his hand in an attempt to regain circulation.

Spying Tess across the commons, he headed toward her. “Are you ready to go?”

“Not yet.”

They were the first words she’d spoken to him all day. Rather than argue, he took another turn around the exhibit, avoiding the picture of him and Hannah, before motioning to Tess they needed to go. With a roll of her eyes and a flip of her hair, she stormed past him out the door.

Great.

By the time they reached their apartment, Dan had had enough. As Tess brushed past him to go to her room, he let loose. “Hold it!”

She stopped, her back to him.

“Turn around, please.”

She turned in a slow circle, her face a stony mask.

“Come here, please.”

Her gaze fixed somewhere beyond him, she walked toward him.

“Can you please tell me what your problem is?”

“It’s your fault.”