Chương 4
“I’m not trying to run.”
“I don’t care what you’re trying to do anymore.”
He turned.
Mason said, “I never wanted to take them from you.”
Evan stopped.
His back remained toward his brother.
“That sentence means you thought about whether you could.”
Mason did not answer.
Evan walked away.
The playroom door was open.
The boys had removed their jackets and thrown them over the back of a sofa exactly as their grandmother had told them not to. Caleb was lying on the rug with a wooden train car in one hand. Owen was kneeling beside a box of magnetic tiles, constructing something that had already collapsed twice. Noah sat on the window seat.
He was not playing.
Evan leaned against the doorframe for a moment before going inside.
Noah saw him first.
“Is it canceled?”
The other boys looked up.
“Yes.”
Owen frowned.
“So no cake?”
Evan sat on the edge of the sofa.
“There will probably still be cake.”
That seemed to improve things for Owen.
Caleb pushed himself upright.
“Can we change clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Even the shoes?”
“Yes.”
He ran toward the hall.
Owen followed.
Noah stayed.
Evan watched them disappear toward the bedrooms where their regular clothes had been left in overnight bags.
Noah picked at the edge of the window-seat cushion.
“Mom’s mad at me.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“She looked mad.”
“She was scared.”
“Because I showed you?”
Evan rubbed both hands over his face.
He had shaved carefully that morning, then decided at the last minute to keep the dark stubble Claire liked because she said completely clean-shaven Evan looked like a politician asking for money.
He lowered his hands.
“Noah, grown-ups can be scared when something they did comes out. That doesn’t mean the person who found out did something wrong.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed with concentration.
“Is Uncle Mason my real dad?”
Evan looked toward the open door.
There it was.
The question he had been avoiding since the bathroom.
He could have answered it with biology. He could have said yes, because the report said yes.
Instead he heard the word real.
Five years of fevers. Toothpaste in the sink. Training wheels. Night terrors. The Saturday Noah had crawled into bed after throwing up and then thrown up again directly into Evan’s pillow. Caleb refusing to wear pants for three weeks when he was two. Owen’s obsession with ceiling fans. Three car seats. Three first words. Three boys shouting Dad from different rooms until Evan occasionally locked himself in the pantry for forty-five seconds of silence.
He leaned forward.
“Mason is your biological father.”
Noah blinked.
“What’s that?”
“It means his body helped make your body.”
“Like Mom?”
“Kind of.”
“Then what are you?”
The answer came out before Evan could inspect it.
“I’m your dad.”
Noah considered this.
“Can you be both?”
“I don’t know all the rules yet.”
“Are there rules?”
“There are always too many rules.”
Noah smiled faintly.
Evan almost did too.
Then Noah asked, “Are you leaving?”
Evan felt his throat close.
“No.”
“Mom said you might.”
“When?”
“Upstairs. Before I got the paper.”
Evan stared at him.
“What exactly did Mom say?”
Noah shifted.
“She said if you knew, everything could change. I asked if that meant you wouldn’t live with us. She said she didn’t know.”
Evan looked at the carpet.
He could be furious with Claire later.
For this, he had no energy left.
He reached for Noah.
The boy came immediately.
Evan held him against his chest and stared past his head at a tower Owen had abandoned on the rug.
“You are not losing me today.”
Noah’s arms tightened around his neck.
“Tomorrow?”
Evan shut his eyes.
“No.”
“Next week?”
“No.”
“Next year?”
Evan pulled back enough to look at him.
“I am your dad next year too.”
Noah nodded, satisfied by a contract he considered sufficiently specific.
Caleb and Owen came running back in T-shirts and shorts, dress socks still on because neither had found normal ones.
“Can we go outside?” Caleb asked.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Too many people.”
“Why are there too many people?”
“Because we invited them.”
“Can we uninvite them?”
Evan looked at the ceiling.
“Yes. Apparently that is what we are doing.”
Owen climbed beside him.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Do I have to wear the gray suit again?”
“Not today.”
“Ever?”
Evan looked at the three of them.
“Let’s not make promises I can’t keep.”
Paige Rowan arrived twenty-three minutes later carrying a leather tote and wearing jeans, running shoes, and a navy blazer over a T-shirt that said MONTANA in faded white letters.
She had been Evan’s attorney for eight years and his friend for almost as long, though neither of them used the second description in front of other lawyers.
She found him in his study.
He had removed his suit jacket and loosened his silver tie. The report lay on the desk inside a clear plastic document sleeve Rachel had found in the office.
Paige read the first page without sitting down.
Then the second.
Then she looked at Evan.
“I need you to tell me exactly how this came into your possession.”
“My son slapped it on a bathroom counter.”
Her eyebrow moved.
“I’m going to need more than that.”
He told her.
He kept his voice flat through most of it. Noah finding the clutch. Claire admitting the possibility had existed since conception. Mason providing a sample. The result. The canceled ceremony.
Paige listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she sat.
“Do not post anything.”
“I don’t post anything.”
“Do not text your brother anything threatening.”
“I haven’t.”
“Do not throw anyone out of the house if doing that would separate the boys from their primary caregiver without a plan.”
Evan’s eyes sharpened.
“I’m their primary caregiver too.”
“I know.”
“Then say it that way.”
Paige leaned back.
“You’re angry.”
May you like
“That’s impressive.”
“I’m not trying to win points. I’m trying to keep you from turning the worst day of your life into three worse days.”
