Chương 6
“Of course he did.”
Claire opened the associated account.
Password rejected.
She tried again.
Rejected.
“Don’t keep trying,” Nora said. “You don’t want it locking.”
Claire sat back.
For years Daniel’s competence had felt like shelter.
He remembered passwords.
He renewed policies.
He negotiated contractors.
He knew which accountant to call.
When Claire’s architecture practice became difficult to maintain during fertility treatment and then pregnancy, he had told her she did not need to prove anything by exhausting herself.
“Let me handle the boring stuff,” he used to say.
She had loved him for that.
Now she sat on the floor beside a filing cabinet and wondered how much of her life had been classified as boring simply because Daniel wanted her not to look at it.
At six, Luke Bennett called.
Claire answered immediately.
“Did you give Daniel blood?”
No greeting.
Luke breathed out.
“What?”
“At the executive collection service three weeks ago.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Claire heard a door close on his end.
“You’re lying.”
“That’s a pretty aggressive way to start a conversation.”
“My husband married another woman today. I’m trying new things.”
Luke said nothing.
Claire waited.
He finally said, “Daniel asked me to do him a favor.”
Nora closed her laptop.
Claire’s pulse slowed rather than quickened.
“What favor?”
“He said it was for a wellness screen.”
“Under his name?”
Another silence.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He was supposed to be in California for meetings. He said Claire—you—would worry if the sample wasn’t done before your appointment. He said it was basically a formality.”
“You used his identification?”
“He gave me his old passport card.”
Claire pressed her palm against the table.
“Luke, it was prenatal genetic testing.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You signed his name.”
“I signed the tablet where they told me.”
“His name was on the screen.”
“I know.”
“Then you knew.”
Luke’s voice sharpened. “I knew I was doing something stupid. I did not know I was falsifying a prenatal test.”
Nora wrote something on a notepad and turned it toward Claire.
RECORD THE FACTS, NOT ARGUMENT.
Claire swallowed.
“When did he ask?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Where?”
“His office.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Luke hesitated.
“Claire, I need to talk to an attorney.”
“That’s probably smart.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t delete anything.”
He went quiet.
Claire said, “Texts. Calendar entries. Anything about the collection. Keep it.”
“Okay.”
“And Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know about Elise?”
The answer came too quickly.
“Yes.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“How long?”
“Since February.”
The room changed.
Not physically.
The refrigerator continued humming. Nora’s soup container sat open on the counter. Outside, someone pushed a stroller past the house.
Claire’s entire relationship with Luke quietly broke.
“You came to my baby shower.”
“I know.”
“You gave me a car seat.”
“I know.”
“You asked whether Daniel and I had decided on a name.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Try the truth.”
Luke inhaled.
“He told me you two had an arrangement.”
“What arrangement?”
“That the marriage was over emotionally but you were staying together through the pregnancy because you didn’t want stress. He said you knew about Elise but didn’t want it public.”
“And that made sense?”
“No.”
“Yet you went along with it.”
“I wanted it to.”
Claire opened her eyes.
That answer hurt more than denial.
Because she understood it.
Luke had spent his whole life following Daniel into rooms and letting his older brother explain what was happening.
Daniel always had a version that made the next bad thing sound temporary.
A business risk.
A difficult choice.
A misunderstanding.
“Were you at the wedding?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know I thought he was in London?”
“No.”
“Would it have mattered?”
Luke did not answer.
Claire ended the call.
Nora reached across the table.
Claire pulled her hand away.
“I don’t want comfort right now.”
“Okay.”
“I want to be angry.”
“Okay.”
“And I want everyone to stop being so sorry after they helped him do it.”
Nora nodded.
“That seems fair.”
Claire stood too quickly and felt a tightening across her abdomen.
She froze.
Nora was beside her immediately.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Claire.”
“Just tight.”
“Pain?”
“No.”
The tightening eased.
Claire breathed slowly.
Nora said, “We’re calling the clinic.”
“It’s probably Braxton Hicks.”
“You can tell Rachel that.”
Rachel returned the call within ten minutes.
She asked about pain, timing, fluid, bleeding, fetal movement, and other symptoms. Claire answered.
“Hydrate,” Rachel said. “Rest. If it becomes regular, painful, or anything changes, call us or go in. And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Today has been a lot. Stress does not mean you caused something if your body does something unexpected.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.”
Rachel waited.
Claire stared at the floor.
“Fine. I was thinking that.”
“I know.”
Before hanging up, Claire told her Luke had admitted giving the sample.
Rachel was silent.
“Can he give you a statement?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Don’t chase it tonight. The lab will handle its own incident process. You handle being pregnant.”
Claire almost laughed.
“You make that sound like a separate job.”
“It is.”
That night Nora slept in the guest room.
Claire lay alone in the bed she shared with Daniel.
She considered sleeping elsewhere, then became angry at the idea that his betrayal should take possession of the mattress too.
At one seventeen in the morning, she woke and reached automatically toward his side.
Her hand touched cold sheets.
She hated herself for the reflex.
She hated him more for having trained it into her.
A message waited on her phone.
Daniel: I’m flying back tomorrow. We need to talk privately before lawyers make this worse.
Claire read it twice.
Then she typed:
Bring your own lawyer.
She stared at the words.
Deleted them.
Marisol had said not to engage.
Claire put the phone facedown.
May you like
At seven the next morning, she made coffee she did not want.
Nora came downstairs wearing one of Claire’s old college sweatshirts.
