Chương 7
“That’s irresponsible.”
“Thank you, Daniel.”
Noah hid a smile behind his coffee.
Margaret went inside.
She remained there almost half an hour.
When she came out, she looked as though she had aged several years since the previous night.
“She knows about the letter,” Margaret said to Noah.
He touched the inside of his jacket.
“She wants you to read it when you’re ready.”
Noah nodded.
Margaret turned to Daniel.
“She’ll see you for five minutes.”
Daniel stood.
The sentence affected him more than the doctor’s report.
Margaret caught his sleeve before he reached the door.
“Listen.”
He looked at her.
“Do not go in there to be forgiven.”
He almost pulled away.
Instead he waited.
“She does not owe you relief because you finally understand what happened.”
Daniel nodded once.
Inside, Claire looked smaller than she had the day before.
Her light-brown hair was pulled loosely away from her face. There was no makeup. An IV line ran into the back of one hand.
Daniel closed the door behind him.
She watched him approach.
He stopped near the foot of the bed.
For fourteen years he had crossed rooms toward her without thinking.
Now he did not know how close he was allowed to stand.
“Hi,” he said.
Claire’s mouth moved.
“Hi.”
Her voice sounded tired.
Daniel looked at the chair beside the bed.
“Can I?”
She nodded.
He sat.
Neither spoke.
A cart rattled past outside.
Claire stared at her hands.
Daniel looked at her wedding ring and deliberately looked away.
“I know,” he said.
“I assume my mother made sure of that.”
“She did.”
Claire gave the faintest exhale.
“Margaret Ellis, destroyer of secrets.”
There was no humor in it.
Daniel clasped his hands between his knees.
“I was wrong.”
Claire looked toward the window.
“I know.”
“I accused you of something terrible.”
“Yes.”
“I accused Noah.”
“Yes.”
“I told you not to come home.”
Her eyes moved back to him.
Daniel’s throat tightened.
“I am sorry.”
Claire studied his face for a long time.
He resisted filling the silence.
Finally she said, “I’m not sure which part hurts most.”
“You don’t have to decide.”
A flicker of irritation crossed her face.
“Don’t be reasonable now.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“Right.”
“You spent three days acting like a prosecutor.”
“I know.”
“You went through my phone.”
“I know.”
“You called a lawyer.”
“Yes.”
“You told me our house wasn’t mine anymore.”
Daniel looked up.
“I know.”
Claire’s mouth trembled.
She pressed it flat.
“No, Daniel. I don’t think you do.”
He did not defend himself.
Her breathing changed, and she waited until it settled.
“I was seventeen when I had Noah.”
Daniel nodded.
“I wasn’t some innocent child. I knew how pregnancy happened. I made choices. His father made choices.” Her gaze drifted past him. “Then everyone older than me started talking as if the consequences belonged only to me.”
Daniel remained still.
“His father’s family moved him away before Noah was born. My father threatened to throw me out. My mother kept saying adoption was love.”
Claire closed her eyes briefly.
“They took me to interviews with couples. Nice people. Stable people. People with houses and savings accounts and guest rooms they said would become nurseries.”
Her voice stayed controlled.
“That was the cruelest part. Nobody was obviously awful.”
Daniel swallowed.
“I picked Renee and Thomas Parker because Renee wrote in her letter that she didn’t believe a child should ever have to feel grateful for being loved.”
He thought of Noah’s birthday photograph.
“They were good parents?”
Claire opened her eyes.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Noah told me.”
There was relief in her voice.
Also grief.
Daniel looked at his hands.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Claire’s face changed.
There it was.
The question he had believed belonged only to anger.
Now it sounded smaller.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Before we got married.”
Daniel stared at her.
Claire looked away.
“You told me your biggest secret was that you’d been engaged before.”
“That was the opening.”
“What?”
“I was trying to tell you.”
Daniel searched the memory.
They had been sitting at a bar in Boston after dinner, months before their wedding. Claire told him there was something about her past he needed to know.
He had made a joke.
Something about hoping she was not secretly married.
She told him about a college boyfriend who had proposed when she was twenty-two.
Daniel remembered feeling relieved.
He had kissed her and said, Is that it? I was expecting a felony or a hidden child.
His stomach turned.
Claire saw recognition arrive.
“You said that.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“Because I couldn’t breathe.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Claire continued.
“And then I waited too long. Every month I waited made it worse. Every year turned the secret into something heavier.”
“Why when we tried to have children?”
“I almost did.”
“Margaret told me.”
Claire’s expression hardened.
“My mother has apparently become very generous with my private history.”
“She also told me about the letter she hid.”
Claire went still.
“You know about that too.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Daniel watched anger rise in Claire’s face, then collapse under exhaustion.
“I found out six weeks ago,” she said. “The same day Noah found me.”
Daniel nodded.
“She told me before I met him because she decided I needed to know everything.” Claire laughed once without amusement. “Apparently twenty-three years late is when honesty becomes urgent.”
“What was the four thousand dollars?”
Claire looked at him.
For a moment he worried the question sounded like the old interrogation.
Then she said, “A private investigator.”
Daniel blinked.
“I hired him before Noah contacted Mom. I’d found a possible record that might have led to him. The investigator was checking it.”
“Did it?”
“No. Wrong person.”
May you like
She rubbed her thumb along the edge of the blanket.
“The money was mine from my personal savings. I moved it through the joint account because I was in a hurry and forgot how visible it would be.”
