Page 107 of Single Dad's Fake Bride
The anger I'd been carrying toward my sisters suddenly felt heavier than I wanted to bear. Caroline had always been the gentler one, more willing to admit when she was wrong.
"It's okay," I said, and I realized I actually meant it.
"Really? You're not just saying that?"
"Really. You were fighting for what you thought were your rights. I can understand that impulse, even if I hated the methods."
She was quiet for a long moment, and I could hear her composing herself.
"Would you be willing to celebrate my birthday this weekend?" I asked impulsively. "All of us together? Sadie, Eloise, Janet, you—maybe even Margot if she's ready to move forward."
"I would love that more than anything," she said immediately. "Thank you, Harrison. Thank you for being a better person than we deserve."
As I hung up and returned to the dinner table, where my wife was helping my daughter with fractions using a cut-up meatball, while my mother-in-law dozed peacefully in her chair, I realized that everything fundamental in my life had shifted. This wasn't the existence I'd planned when I'd first approached Sadie with my desperate proposal, but it was exactly the life I wanted to keep building, one ordinary evening at a time.
EPILOGUE
Sadie
The house buzzed with voices and laughter, a warmth I'd never experienced in my own childhood filling every room. Eloise had spent the morning decorating the front porch with hand-drawn signs that readHappy Birthday, Dad!in purple marker, complete with stick figures of our family that somehow managed to capture our essence despite their simplicity.
I stood in the kitchen doorway, watching the controlled chaos unfold around me. Juan had arrived early with cupcakes shaped like tiny textbooks—a joke about Harrison's academic background that had everyone chuckling. Caroline sat at the kitchen table with my mother, both of them laughing at something Eloise had said. The sight of Harrison's sister helping arrange flowers in mason jars still felt surreal after everything we'd been through.
"Sadie, where do you want the extra chairs?" Dr. Sterling called from the living room.
"Wherever they fit," I called back, then caught Harrison's eye as he carried a cooler of drinks toward the back door. He looked genuinely happy for the first time since I'd known him, his usual tension replaced by something lighter.
The backyard had transformed into an impromptu party space. Board members who'd questioned Harrison's every decision now stood in small clusters, congratulating him with what appeared to be genuine warmth. Marcus Henley was deep in conversation with Dr. Caldwell near the garden, both men nodding approvingly at whatever they were discussing while hovering around an outdoor heater.
"This is quite the turnout," Caroline said, appearing beside me with two glasses of lemonade.
"I wasn't sure anyone would come," I admitted, accepting the drink gratefully.
"Are you kidding? Half the school has been dying to see inside the headmaster's private life." She smiled, and for a moment I glimpsed the woman Harrison might have grown up with before family politics tore them apart. "The other half came for Juan's cupcakes. Those textbook ones are genius."
Through the window, I watched my mother holding court near another of the outdoor heaters. She looked better than she had in months—her body was healing and so was her heart. Dr. White had warned us that recovery from cirrhosis would have good days and bad days, but seeing her laugh at something Mr. Henderson was saying made my chest ache with gratitude.
"Your mom seems to be enjoying herself," Caroline observed.
"She's having her first good day in weeks. I keep waiting for her to get tired and need to lie down, but she's been going strong all afternoon."
"She's proud of you. It shows."
I glanced at Caroline, surprised by the genuine kindness in her voice. "I wasn't sure you'd come today."
She was quiet for a moment, watching Harrison flip burgers on the grill while Eloise peppered him with questions about the proper burger-flipping technique.
"I owe you an apology," she said finally. "A real one, not the phone version I gave Harrison."
"Caroline—"
"No, let me say this. The way Margot and I treated you during those depositions was inexcusable. We convinced ourselves that you were some gold-digger who'd manipulated our brother, but we were wrong. Completely wrong."
"You were protecting your family," I said quietly.
"We were being terrible people." She turned to face me fully. "But watching you today, seeing how you take care of Harrison and Eloise and your mother—you're the kind of person I always hoped my brother would find. Someone strong enough to love him exactly as he is."
Before I could respond, Eloise burst through the back door.
