Chương 11
“Bad dinosaur.”
Marcus looked at the sticker on my sleeve.
“Ah.”
Noah pointed weakly.
“He has it.”
Marcus followed his finger to me.
His expression changed.
“So that’s why you’re here.”
“No.”
Grace dropped her bag onto a chair.
“He got tested.”
Marcus looked at her.
“For Noah?”
“Yes.”
His anger did not disappear.
It became more complicated.
He nodded once at me.
“Good.”
The word sounded like a concession he hated making.
Grace started unloading medication from the hospital bag.
Marcus carried Noah toward a small bedroom.
I stood in the middle of the room.
Lily pulled off her boots and left them in opposite directions.
Sophie climbed onto a kitchen chair and announced that she wanted crackers.
Grace handed her a packet without looking.
The competence of it all was brutal.
She moved through the apartment as if three simultaneous emergencies were normal.
Maybe they were.
I looked at Marcus.
“You knew she tried to contact me?”
He laughed without humor.
“Of course I knew.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Grace turned.
“Don’t.”
“No, I want to hear this.”
Marcus faced me.
“You want to hear why I didn’t chase down the guy who made my sister cry for six months?”
“I didn’t know she was pregnant.”
“You knew she was your wife.”
“Ex-wife.”
“You weren’t divorced yet when she called you.”
I had no answer.
Marcus folded his arms.
“She told me you’d blocked her.”
“I didn’t.”
“She said your office wouldn’t put her through.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That sentence is doing a lot of work today.”
Grace closed a cabinet harder than necessary.
“Enough.”
Marcus ignored her.
“She was carrying three babies and throwing up so much she got dehydrated.”
I looked at Grace.
She stared at the counter.
Marcus continued.
“I came back from Phoenix because she fainted at a grocery store.”
“Marcus.”
“What?”
She turned toward him.
“I said enough.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
“Fine.”
He disappeared into Noah’s room.
I stood there with a pressure behind my eyes I refused to give in to.
Grace opened the refrigerator.
“You should go.”
“I just got here.”
“You weren’t invited.”
“I brought you home.”
“And now we’re home.”
I looked around.
There were photographs on the refrigerator.
Triplets in Halloween costumes.
Triplets covered in birthday cake.
Grace holding all three on a couch while Marcus stood behind her making rabbit ears over her head.
I stepped closer.
One photograph showed newborns in incubators.
Tiny bodies.
Tubes.
Tape.
Blue hospital blankets.
I reached toward it and stopped before touching.
“How early?”
Grace knew which picture I meant.
“Thirty-one weeks.”
My chest tightened.
“How long were they in the NICU?”
“Noah seven weeks.”
She continued sorting medicine.
“The girls five.”
“Were there complications?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Ryan.”
“I need to know.”
She turned around.
“No, you want to know.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Need is when Noah’s doctor asks for your medical history.”
She pointed toward the photograph.
“Want is standing in my kitchen demanding three years of pain because you finally have time for it.”
I flinched.
She saw it and looked tired rather than satisfied.
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“You’re doing a pretty good job.”
“I know.”
The refrigerator hummed between us.
Outside, someone dragged a trash bin down the alley.
Lily asked Sophie whether crackers counted as dinner.
Sophie said yes.
Grace said no.
For several seconds, nobody spoke to me.
Then I noticed an envelope tucked beneath a magnet on the refrigerator.
My name was written across the front.
Ryan Callahan.
I knew the handwriting.
My mother’s.
Grace followed my eyes.
Her face changed.
“That’s the letter?”
I asked.
She moved toward the refrigerator.
I reached it first.
“Don’t.”
My hand stopped inches from the envelope.
“It’s addressed to me.”
“No.”
“It literally has my name on it.”
“That one does.”
I looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
Grace stood very still.
“It means your mother sent two letters after the babies were born.”
I felt the room narrow again.
“One to me.”
She reached past me and removed the envelope from the magnet.
“And one to you.”
I stared at it.
“You kept a letter she sent me?”
“I found it three months later.”
“Where?”
Grace looked toward the hallway where Marcus had disappeared.
Then back at me.
“In the box your office mailed to my attorney.”
I said nothing.
She held the envelope by its edges.
“It was already opened when I got it.”
My throat tightened.
“What does it say?”
Grace swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
“You never read it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it was yours.”
The simplicity of that answer hurt more than anything else had.
I took the envelope.
The paper had yellowed slightly at the edges.
My mother’s handwriting looked exactly as it did on birthday cards and thank-you notes.
The flap had been cut open cleanly.
I slid the letter out.
Grace turned away.
I unfolded it.
The first line made my hands go cold.
Ryan, by the time you receive this, I expect Grace will have contacted you about the babies, and before you make any decisions, there is something your father and I need to tell you.
I read the sentence twice before my eyes would move to the next line.
Your father believes there is a possibility the children are not biologically yours, and given the circumstances surrounding the separation, I strongly advise that you do nothing until this is clarified.
Below that, my mother had written that she had retained counsel.
She had written that any acknowledgment of paternity could create obligations.
She had written that emotion was not evidence.
She had written that Grace had been seen repeatedly with another man.
Then, halfway down the page, the tone changed.
If the children are yours, we will of course discuss an appropriate arrangement.
I stopped there.
Not your arrangement.
Not your children.
An arrangement.
May you like
My hands began to shake.
Grace watched me from beside the sink.
