The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 494

Mia's POV

The music started.

It was an old song. Something from—I don't know. Another century. The kind of melody that lives in the collective unconscious, that everyone knows without knowing how they know it. Notes that your grandmother hummed, that her grandmother hummed before her. Music that existed before recording, before radio, before any of us were born. It simply was, the way sunlight was, the way rain was.

The horses began to rise and fall in their gentle, eternal rhythm.

Up. Down. Up. Down. Like breathing. Like the tide.

The afternoon light slanted through the carousel's canopy, catching the gold leaf on the horses' bridles, the tiny mirrors embedded in the central column. Everything glittered. Everything spun. The world outside became a smear of color. It's green trees, blue sky, the bright dots of other visitors, all of it bleeding together into something impressionistic.

I could smell it. That particular carousel smell. Machine oil and old wood and something sweeter underneath. Decades of cotton candy fingers gripping these same brass poles, generations of children pressing their faces against these painted manes. The smell of joy, accumulated. Layer upon layer, year upon year.

The platform beneath my feet vibrated gently. A hum I felt more than heard, traveling up through my shoes, my bones, settling somewhere behind my ribs. The mechanical heartbeat of something ancient and tireless.

Madison rose. Fell. Rose again. Her rabbit carrying her through the golden air.

I watched through my phone screen. Alexander waving his arms like he was flying. Ethan holding the pole with dignified precision. Madison's face—Madison's face—

Something cracked in my chest.

She was smiling.

A happy child.

I took the picture. Then another.

"How many rides," Kyle asked an hour later, "before you tap out?"

We were sitting on a bench. The children had discovered a fountain—a splash pad designed to look like a magical spring, with jets of water shooting up at random intervals. They were drenched. Absolutely, completely, gloriously drenched.

I had spare clothes in the bag. Of course I did.

"I don't tap out."

"You turned green on the spinning teacups."

"That's because Alexander was determined to set a rotation speed record."

"He nearly did. I think we achieved liftoff at one point."

I laughed. Couldn't help it. The sound surprised both of us.

Kyle was watching the children. All three of them were standing at the edge of the splash pad now, holding hands, waiting for the next jet. When it came—shooting up directly under Alexander's feet—they all shrieked. Even Ethan. Even quiet, serious Ethan.

"We can take a break," I said. "Sit somewhere quiet. Get some food."

"Your father," I heard myself say. "What kind of person was he?"

Kyle's face changed. Something colder.

"A man who killed his pregnant fiancée," he said quietly. "What kind of person do you think he was?"

"Kyle." I looked out at the crowd with him. A father walked past carrying a toddler on his shoulders. "Sometimes I think people are the most complicated animals."

He didn't say anything.

"When Taylor moved in with us," I said, "that's when I found out. My father had a whole other family." I shook my head.

I hadn't thought about Richard in—how long? Since the trial, maybe. Since the sentencing. I'd never visited his grave. Not once.

I realized I hadn't said the word "dad" out loud in years.

"The thing is—" I paused. Watched a little girl run past clutching a princess wand. "he wasn't completely terrible. As a father, I mean."

Kyle turned his head slightly.

"Sometimes I wish he had been." My voice was quieter now. "I wish every memory I had of him was bad. I wish everything he ever did was wrong." I took a breath. "It would make hating him so much easier."

"But he wasn't like that," I said. "He wasn't."