Chương 6
“That is a wedding, Claire.”
“I know.”
“You’re describing a wedding like it was an unexpected emergency.”
“I know.”
Paige leaned forward.
“Were you planning to marry him without telling him?”
Claire looked at the floor.
“No.”
Evan stared at her.
Paige waited.
Claire’s shoulders sagged.
“I don’t know.”
That answer was finally believable.
She rubbed her thumb across the pale indentation where her ring had been.
“I put the report in the clutch because I thought if I had it physically with me, I couldn’t pretend. I was going to take Evan into the bathroom before the ceremony.”
“The bathroom,” Evan repeated.
“Yes.”
“You planned the location.”
“I planned something.”
“But Noah beat you to it.”
“Yes.”
Paige asked, “Six years ago, what happened?”
Claire glanced at Evan.
“You know we broke up.”
“I know the version I lived.”
Evan folded his arms.
“Tell her.”
Six years earlier, Evan and Claire had been engaged for eleven months.
At thirty, Evan could now admit what twenty-five-year-old Evan had not: he had panicked.
His father had died unexpectedly that spring, leaving behind debts, two lawsuits, a mistress nobody in the family had known about, and a second cell phone Mason found while sorting through a desk drawer.
Evan responded by working.
He worked until midnight. He slept at the office twice. He snapped at Claire for asking whether he had eaten. When she brought up wedding plans, he heard pressure rather than partnership.
Then, one night, after an argument over absolutely nothing and everything, he took off the engagement ring she had given back to him during the fight, put it in his pocket, and said maybe they were making a mistake.
Claire asked if he was ending it.
He said yes.
Nine days later, he regretted it.
By then, Claire had slept with Mason twice.
Evan knew that part now.
“Where?” he asked.
Claire’s face tightened.
“Does that matter?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Paige said.
Evan looked at her.
“It does to me.”
Paige held his gaze.
“It won’t help you.”
“I didn’t ask if it would.”
Claire spoke before he could turn back.
“Mason’s apartment.”
Evan nodded slowly.
“Did you call him?”
“The first time.”
“Why him?”
“I was angry.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is.”
“With me.”
“Yes.”
“So you slept with my brother to hurt me.”
Claire hesitated.
“The first time? Partly.”
Evan looked away.
“And the second?”
Claire’s voice dropped.
“Because I had already done it once.”
That answer was ugly enough to sound true.
Evan pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose.
Paige sat quietly.
Claire continued.
“When you came back, you didn’t know. Mason and I agreed it had been a mistake.”
“A mistake is putting diesel in a gas car.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
She stopped.
“When did you realize the pregnancy could be his?”
“Immediately.”
“And when did you decide not to tell me?”
Claire’s face changed.
“I didn’t decide all at once.”
Evan looked at her.
“That is how decisions like this happen. You know that, right? They don’t feel like a decision if you keep making them in pieces.”
She had found out she was pregnant two weeks after Evan returned. The doctor initially believed there was one baby. Then two. Then at the next scan, three.
Evan had cried in the parking garage.
That detail came back to him suddenly.
He had tried to hide it, turning his face toward the driver’s window. Claire had touched the back of his neck and laughed because he was crying while insisting he had dust in his eye inside a concrete parking structure.
They stopped on the way home and bought three tiny pairs of socks.
The socks were ridiculous. Gray, yellow, and green. None of the boys had worn them because they were born premature and the socks were still too big for weeks.
Evan had kept one pair in his desk.
He wondered whether Claire had thought about Mason while he bought them.
He hated himself for wondering.
“I told myself the timing was more likely you,” Claire said.
“Was it?”
“I didn’t know.”
“You could have tested.”
“Yes.”
“But then I might leave.”
“Yes.”
“So you preferred uncertainty.”
“Yes.”
Evan stared at her.
Claire looked back.
“For years I told myself it didn’t matter because you were their father. Then every year it mattered more, because every year there was more to lose.”
Paige said nothing.
Evan walked to the desk and picked up the report.
“Did Mason ever ask you to test?”
“Twice.”
“When?”
“Once when the boys were babies. Once when they were three.”
“And?”
“I said no.”
“Did he threaten to tell me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Claire’s eyes flicked toward the hallway.
“You should ask him.”
“I am asking you.”
“Because he was afraid too.”
“Everybody was very considerate of everybody except me.”
“And the boys,” Paige said quietly.
Evan looked at her.
Paige did not soften the point.
“The boys were living inside information that could affect them too.”
Claire nodded.
“Yes.”
Evan sat down.
For the first time all day, he felt tired rather than angry.
That frightened him more.
“What do you want now?” Paige asked Claire.
Claire looked at Evan.
“I want the boys safe.”
“That’s vague.”
“I want Evan to remain their dad.”
Paige’s voice stayed neutral.
“That may be what happens, but I asked what you want, not what outcome would make you feel less guilty.”
Claire flinched.
Evan looked at Paige.
She did not look back at him.
Claire lowered herself into the chair.
“I want to stop lying.”
“Good beginning,” Paige said. “What else?”
“I don’t want Mason to suddenly become their father because of a test.”
“Has he asked to?”
“No.”
“Do you want him to have a different role?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Evan get a vote?”
Claire looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Do the boys?”
“They’re five.”
“They are still people.”
Claire swallowed.
“Yes.”
May you like
Paige closed the report sleeve.
“Then nobody decides the rest today.”
