Chương 5
“What did you think when you found out?”
Noah considered.
“That I had the wrong woman.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t look old enough.”
Margaret almost smiled.
Noah rubbed the paper seam of his cup with one thumb.
“Then I stared at her picture for about an hour.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Her company website first. Then Facebook.”
Claire worked as a program director for a regional arts foundation, a job Daniel had privately considered too small for her and had wisely never said so.
“You contacted Margaret before Claire.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“She was easier to verify.”
Margaret muttered, “I have become searchable in my old age.”
Noah glanced at her.
“You donated to too many committees.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You knew Claire was married.”
“Pretty early.”
“And you agreed to meet her without telling me.”
Noah’s expression closed.
Daniel raised a hand.
“I’m not accusing you. I’m trying to understand.”
Noah watched him for another second.
“She asked me not to tell anyone yet.”
“Did that seem strange?”
“Everything seemed strange.”
Fair.
Noah leaned back.
“I wasn’t trying to join a family. I didn’t even know if I wanted to meet her.”
Margaret looked at him.
“You never said that.”
“I didn’t think it would help.”
“Why did you?”
“Why did I what?”
“Meet her.”
Noah stared into the coffee.
“My mom died last year.”
Margaret’s face softened.
Daniel had seen the old birthday post. Renee.
Noah continued.
“She knew I’d been looking. Not obsessively. Just… off and on. She told me if I ever found my biological mother, I shouldn’t worry about being disloyal.”
His voice remained steady.
“She said loving more people wasn’t cheating.”
Daniel looked down at the divorce envelope.
Noah noticed.
Neither commented.
“My dad wasn’t as enthusiastic,” Noah said. “He wasn’t against it. He just kept finding things to fix in the garage whenever I brought it up.”
“Your father is alive?” Margaret asked.
“Yeah. He lives outside Columbus.”
“And you?”
“Here. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“I’m finishing school and working.”
Daniel had read all of that online and still asked, “Where?”
Noah answered with the name of a small architectural drafting firm.
Daniel recognized it vaguely.
“What are you studying?”
“Construction management.”
Margaret nodded as if filing it carefully away.
Noah saw her do it.
“Claire already asked me all this.”
Margaret looked embarrassed.
“Of course she did.”
“She made a list.”
Daniel’s head turned.
Noah smiled faintly.
“Not on purpose. She just kept checking her phone notes.”
Daniel could see Claire doing that.
She kept lists for everything.
Books to buy.
Restaurants to try.
Birthdays.
Things Daniel said he would fix around the house and somehow never did.
He imagined a note titled Questions for Noah and had to look away.
The door opened.
The nurse stepped out again.
“Mr. Mercer?”
Daniel stood too quickly.
“How is she?”
“Stable. Her physician will speak with you both when he’s available.” Her gaze included Margaret. “She’s resting now.”
“Can I see her?”
The nurse paused.
“She still doesn’t want visitors except Noah.”
The phrasing stung.
Visitors.
“I’m her husband.”
“I understand.”
“Then you understand I need to know what’s happening.”
“I can tell you she’s stable. I can’t override her wishes about visitors.”
Daniel started to respond.
Noah stood.
“Daniel.”
It was quiet.
Enough.
Daniel stopped.
The nurse gave Noah a brief grateful look.
“She may want to see you again in a little while,” she told him.
Noah nodded.
Daniel stepped aside.
The nurse returned to the room.
The latch clicked again.
Daniel sat.
He had spent the previous hour being angry at doors.
Now he began to understand they were only doing what Claire had asked.
At one-thirty in the morning, Margaret finally called a car.
She resisted Daniel’s offer to drive her.
“You haven’t slept,” she said.
“Neither have you.”
“I’m not operating two tons of German engineering.”
He almost corrected her on the car’s weight.
The impulse was so familiar and ridiculous that he let out a breath.
Margaret saw it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Daniel.”
“I was about to explain my own car to you.”
She stared.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
One short exhausted sound.
Daniel laughed too.
Noah looked at both of them as if they had lost their minds.
Maybe they had.
The moment vanished quickly.
Margaret gathered her handbags.
Before leaving, she held the cream envelope toward Noah.
“This belongs to you.”
Noah did not take it.
“What is it?”
“A letter Claire wrote eleven years ago.”
His face changed.
“Why do you have it?”
Margaret looked toward the hospital room.
“She asked me to keep it in case you found her too late.”
Noah stared at the handwriting.
After several seconds, he reached for it.
Daniel watched his fingers close around the envelope.
“Are you going to read it?” Margaret asked.
Noah slid it inside his jacket.
“Not here.”
Margaret nodded.
At the elevator, she turned to Daniel.
“Go home.”
He looked at Claire’s door.
“No.”
“She may be here all night.”
“So will I.”
Margaret studied him.
“For her?”
Daniel knew a trap when he heard one.
“For me,” he said. “I don’t trust myself to go home and start deciding what everything means.”
Margaret’s expression changed slightly.
It was not forgiveness.
Maybe recognition.
“Good,” she said.
The elevator doors closed.
Noah sat again.
Daniel loosened his tie.
At two in the morning they were still in the corridor, two men connected by Claire and by almost nothing else.
Noah looked at the divorce envelope.
“You really brought those to the hospital?”
Daniel followed his gaze.
“I brought them before I knew she was going to the hospital.”
“How does that work?”
Daniel hesitated.
Then he told him.
Three days earlier, he had seen Claire leaving a coffee shop with Noah.
They had hugged outside.
Not romantically.
May you like
Daniel knew that now.
At the time, he had been sitting in a hired car across the street after a client lunch, half-listening to a call. Claire had told him she was meeting Margaret.
