Chương 5
Ethan sat down on the low brick border beneath the magnolia tree as if his knees had stopped cooperating.I had seen him furious, drunk, grieving, arrogant, sick with the flu, and once so exhausted after a seventy-hour workweek that he fell asleep with a fork in his hand.I had never seen him look small.Marissa stood a few feet away, clutching her phone against her chest.“This doesn’t prove he broke up your marriage,” she said.Ethan laughed without looking at her.“No, just that he apparently treated it like a hobby.”I should have felt vindicated.For years I had carried the private humiliation of being the suspicious wife, the difficult wife, the woman who could not conceive and then could not stop thinking about it.Some part of me had imagined that if evidence ever appeared, it would feel like a door opening.Instead, it felt like finding out the room had been built wrong from the beginning.“Do you still have messages from him?” I asked Ethan.He looked up.“From seven years ago?”“Yes.”“I don’t know.”“Check.”He frowned.“Right now?”“Yes.”“Claire, my brother is twenty yards away doing the electric slide.”“Then this should be memorable.”Marissa almost smiled.Ethan noticed.“Glad somebody’s enjoying herself.”“I’m not.”“You looked like it.”“I almost smiled because she was funny.”“Wonderful.”“Stop it,” I said.He looked at me.“You don’t get to punish her because Daniel lied to you.”“She lied to me too.”“Yes.”Marissa flinched.I continued before she could defend herself.“Those are two separate problems.”Ethan stared at me for a moment.Then he pulled out his phone.“Our old messages probably didn’t transfer.”“Search his name.”“I know how phones work.”“Good, then we’re making progress.”He gave me a look that would once have started a forty-minute argument.Now it barely survived three seconds.He searched.His thumb stopped.“What?”He did not answer.“What did you find?”“Emails.”“How old?”“Old enough.”He opened one.I moved closer despite myself.The message was from Daniel, dated nine months before Lily was born.The subject line read, Thursday.Ethan scrolled.Most of it concerned a fantasy football league.Then one paragraph appeared.You should stay out tonight.She’ll probably accuse you anyway, so you might as well enjoy yourself.My skin prickled.Ethan read the line again.“I remember this.”“What happened that night?”He rubbed his forehead.“I went drinking with him.”“You came home at two.”His eyes lifted.“You remember?”“I was married to you.”“I told you we had a client dinner.”“You did.”He looked back at the email.“There was no client dinner.”Marissa whispered, “Jesus.”I felt anger rise, clean and hot.Not because Daniel had lied.Because Ethan had.“You still chose to lie to me.”“I know.”“You didn’t accidentally tell me there was a client dinner.”“I know.”“Daniel didn’t move your mouth.”“I said I know.”His voice sharpened.I stopped.There it was again, the old edge.But instead of pushing harder, Ethan lowered his head.“I’m sorry.”The words were quiet.I did not answer.He scrolled to another message.Then another.Daniel had been remarkably consistent.If I questioned Ethan’s whereabouts, Daniel called me controlling.If Ethan complained about fertility appointments, Daniel told him I was obsessed.If Ethan expressed guilt about missing one, Daniel told him I would get over it.None of the messages commanded Ethan to treat me badly.That would have been easier.They simply gave him permission.He had taken it.“This doesn’t absolve you,” I said.“I didn’t ask it to.”I looked at him.That answer was new too.Marissa lowered herself onto the opposite end of the brick border.“I don’t understand why he cared.”Neither did I.Ethan kept scrolling.“He didn’t like Claire.”“That’s not enough,” I said.“He complained about you constantly.”“He also helped me assemble a crib.”Both of them looked at me.I regretted the sentence immediately.“What crib?” Ethan asked.I hesitated.“The one we bought before the second IVF transfer.”His face changed.We had purchased it too early.That had been my idea.I had convinced myself optimism was a kind of courage.After the transfer failed, I could not walk into the spare bedroom for weeks.Daniel came over one Sunday while Ethan was working and helped me take the crib apart.At least, that was how I remembered it.“Daniel told me you returned it,” Ethan said.“No.”“What happened to it?”“I donated it.”“You never told me.”“You never asked.”He looked away.Marissa stared at the grass.“This is sick.”A cheer erupted from the tent.Someone had begun a line dance.For a few seconds, colored reception lights swept across the lawn and over our faces.It made the three of us look ridiculous, like unwilling participants in a nightclub.My phone buzzed.Nora.Lily wants to dance with you before she melts from sugar.I looked toward the tent.Through the opening, I could see Lily spinning in a circle with both arms extended.“I’m going inside.”Ethan looked up.“Now?”“Yes.”“We’re in the middle of this.”“My daughter wants to dance.”“Claire.”“You can investigate your cousin without me for ten minutes.”I walked away before he could answer.Lily saw me and immediately grabbed my hand.“You missed the chicken dance.”“I’ll recover.”“It was good.”“I’ll recover eventually.”She pulled me into the crowd.I was a terrible dancer and always had been.Ethan used to tease me about counting under my breath when music started.Lily had inherited none of that restraint.She bounced, kicked, turned, and nearly collided with a waiter carrying coffee.Nora intercepted the waiter with impressive reflexes.“Your child is a workplace hazard,” she said.“She’s expressive.”“She’s eight ounces of frosting away from seeing God.”Lily shouted, “I heard that.”“You were meant to.”For several minutes, I let myself exist inside the noise.Lily held my hands and jumped.The bride joined us, barefoot now, her veil gone.An elderly uncle moved with solemn determination beside a group of teenagers.Someone spilled beer.Nobody died.Life continued.That felt important.Then Lily looked past me.“Marissa’s crying.”I turned.She stood near the edge of the tent wiping her face.Ethan was nowhere beside her.“Maybe she’s emotional because of the wedding.”Lily frowned.“She wasn’t crying at the wedding part.”Children deserved truth, but not all of it at once.“She’s having a hard night.”“Because she saw me?”The question struck harder than anything Ethan had asked.I crouched in front of her.“No.”“Are you sure?”“Yes.”“Does she wish she kept me?”Behind Lily, the music continued.People danced.Someone shouted for the groom to do a spin.I looked at my daughter.“Where did that question come from?”“She looked sad when she saw my picture.”I brushed a strand of hair from her forehead.“Adults can be sad about choices even when they know those choices led somewhere good.”“Like when you threw away your red shoes?”I blinked.“What?”“You said they hurt your feet, but then you said you missed them.”I laughed despite myself.“Sort of.”She considered that seriously.“So she can miss me and still be glad I have you?”My throat tightened.“Yes.”“Okay.”“Okay?”“Yeah.”She stood.Apparently the question had not required the emotional summit I had prepared myself to climb.“Can I have lemonade?”“Water.”“Lemonade has water.”“Nora.”Nora appeared beside us.“Don’t drag me into this.”“You’re supposed to support me.”“I support hydration.”Lily groaned dramatically and followed her toward the drink station.I stood slowly.Marissa was still near the entrance.When I approached, she wiped her eyes again.“I’m sorry.”“For what?”“She saw me.”“She sees people.”“I mean crying.”“She asked whether you wished you had kept her.”Marissa stopped breathing for a moment.“What did you say?”“That she could ask you herself someday if she wants.”Fear crossed her face.Then something softer.“Someday?”“She’s seven.”“Right.”“I’m not putting this conversation on her tonight.”“Of course.”Marissa looked toward Lily.“Thank you.”“Don’t thank me yet.”Her expression tightened.“I have conditions.”“For what?”“For whatever happens after tonight.”She stared at me.“I’m listening.”“If you want contact with Lily, it happens slowly.”Her mouth opened.I held up a hand.“I said if.”She closed it.“No secret messages.”“Okay.”“No finding her school.”“I wouldn’t.”“No contacting teachers, friends, relatives, anybody around her.”“I wouldn’t.”“You searched for pictures of her for eleven months.”Marissa looked down.“Fair.”“No showing up somewhere because you know we’ll be there.”“Okay.”“And if this thing with Daniel becomes ugly, Lily does not become evidence in your argument with Ethan.”Her eyes came up.“I would never use her.”“Everyone says that before they feel cornered.”Marissa absorbed it without protesting.“That includes you,” she said quietly.“Yes.”The answer surprised her.It did not surprise me.Motherhood had not made me morally pure.It had made me more aware of the damage I was capable of justifying when frightened.“I can agree to that,” she said.“You need to think before agreeing.”“I don’t.”“You do.”She pressed her lips together.Then nodded.“All right.”Ethan appeared outside the tent.He walked toward us holding his phone.“I found something.”His face made my stomach tighten.Marissa straightened.“What?”“Not here.”We moved away from the entrance again.Ethan opened an email.“This is from Daniel to me.”The date was seven years earlier, twelve days before Lily’s birth.He handed me the phone.I read.The message began with a complaint about my insistence that Ethan attend another fertility consultation.Then Daniel wrote that I was never going to let the baby issue go and that Ethan needed to decide whether he wanted to spend the rest of his life being punished for something neither of us could fix.I had heard almost those exact words from Ethan three days later.I looked at him.He did not pretend otherwise.“Keep reading,” he said.Near the bottom was another paragraph.If you ever get out, do it clean.Don’t let guilt drag you into raising some kid that isn’t yours just because Claire gets desperate.My hand went cold around the phone.Marissa leaned closer.“He wrote that before Lily was born.”“Yes,” Ethan said.I read the sentence again.Daniel had known Marissa intended to place Lily for adoption.He had known I desperately wanted a child.And before Lily was born, he had already been warning Ethan not to raise a child who was not biologically his.Marissa whispered, “He knew.”“Knew what?” Ethan asked.Her eyes met mine.“Daniel knew Claire might be offered the baby.”I shook my head.“That’s impossible.”“No.”Marissa’s voice trembled.“The attorney told me there was another prospective mother after the first family backed out.”“So?”“She didn’t give me your name.”“Then Daniel couldn’t know.”Marissa closed her eyes.“I told him what the attorney said.”“When?”“The week before Lily was born.”“And?”“He asked questions.”My heart began beating harder.“What questions?”“Where the woman lived.”“What she did.”“Whether she was married.”Ethan stared at her.“What did you tell him?”“That she worked in pediatric administration and lived outside Savannah.”I felt the night tilt.Seven years ago, I had been an assistant administrator at a children’s therapy clinic outside Savannah.Daniel knew that.Everyone in Ethan’s family knew that.Marissa whispered, “I think he figured out it was you before any of us did.”Ethan looked sick.“Why wouldn’t he stop the adoption?”I answered before Marissa could.“Because he wanted Lily placed.”Marissa nodded slowly.“And he wanted Claire to have a child.”Ethan looked at me.“No.”“Yes.”“That makes no sense.”It did not.Not yet.Then another memory surfaced.Daniel standing in my kitchen after my final failed fertility treatment.Daniel washing two coffee mugs while I sat at the table pretending not to cry.Daniel saying, very quietly, “There are other ways to become a mother.”At the time, I had believed he was being kind.I looked at Ethan.“He encouraged me to adopt.”Ethan’s face went blank.“What?”“Repeatedly.”Marissa covered her mouth.The meaning settled among us with terrible slowness.Daniel had been pushing Ethan away from me while pushing me toward adoption.He had abandoned Marissa while leaving Lily available to be adopted.Whatever he had been doing, it had begun before Lily’s birth.Ethan took his phone back.“I’m calling him.”“Not yet.”He turned on me.“What else do you need?”“I need to know why.”“So ask him.”“If you call furious, he’ll deny everything.”“He can’t deny the emails.”“He can deny motive.”“I don’t care about motive.”“Yes, you do.”His jaw tightened.“You don’t get to tell me what I care about.”“No.”I looked at him steadily.“But I know what happens when you’re angry.”The sentence landed harder than I intended.Ethan looked away first.Marissa whispered, “There’s one person who might know.”We both turned toward her.“Who?” I asked.She hesitated.“Daniel’s mother.”Ethan frowned.“Aunt Carol?”Marissa nodded.“I met her once.”He stared at her.“You met Carol?”“She came to the restaurant.”“When?”“When I was pregnant.”My skin prickled.“Did she know who you were?”“Yes.”“Did she know about Lily?”Marissa swallowed.“She knew everything.”Ethan went completely still.His aunt Carol was at the wedding.I had seen her less than an hour earlier, sitting three tables behind the groom.And when Lily ran across the lawn calling me Mommy, Carol Mercer had been close enough to hear every word.
