Chương 2
They were dressed alike only because I had won a prolonged negotiation involving threats, bribery, and the phrase one decent photograph for your grandmother.
On the giant screen behind them, there was nowhere for inheritance to hide.
Leo had Julian's jaw.
Ethan had Julian's nose.
Both had the same deep-set gray eyes I had once watched across a courthouse table while Julian signed away our marriage with a pen Victoria had given him.
I turned toward the VIP section.
Julian was no longer applauding.
His face had emptied.
Victoria was looking from him to the screen.
Then back again.
“Holloway,” Julian said.
I couldn't hear the word, but I saw his mouth form it.
My maiden name.
Victoria's expression changed first.
“No.”
Julian didn't answer her.
“No,” she repeated.
Preston looked between them.
“What?”
The medals were placed around my sons' necks.
Ethan immediately adjusted his because the ribbon was twisted.
Leo looked down at his medal as though checking whether somebody had made an administrative error.
The woman beside me squeezed my forearm.
“You must be so proud.”
“I am.”
My voice broke on the last word.
I cleared my throat.
She politely pretended not to notice.
Then Victoria stood.
“This is ridiculous.”
The applause faltered.
Julian caught her wrist.
“Sit down.”
She pulled free.
“We paid for the best tutors in Manhattan.”
Several heads turned.
Preston sank lower in his chair.
“Mom.”
Victoria pointed toward the stage.
“How does Preston lose to two fatherless nobodies?”
The room changed.
Not dramatically.
No collective gasp came.
Instead, applause died in scattered pockets as people understood at different speeds what had been said.
A man near the aisle muttered, “Jesus.”
Someone farther back began recording on a phone.
I saw Leo's smile disappear.
Ethan went completely still.
That was worse.
My sons had heard stupid remarks about not having a father before.
They had never heard one delivered into the silence of a national auditorium.
I took one step toward the aisle.
Julian got there first.
“Shut your mouth, Victoria.”
She stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“I said shut your mouth.”
There was something almost absurd about hearing him defend children he had abandoned without knowing they existed.
Victoria saw the absurdity too.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Oh my God.”
Julian stepped into the aisle.
“Not here.”
“You know them.”
“No.”
“You're looking at them like—”
“Victoria.”
Preston stood abruptly.
“Can we please leave?”
Nobody answered him.
That was the moment I stopped being angry at the boy's mother and became angry at all three adults, including myself.
I moved toward them.
“Preston.”
He looked at me, startled.
“You didn't do anything wrong.”
Victoria laughed once.
“Don't speak to my son.”
“Then somebody should.”
Julian flinched.
The stage manager had begun ushering finalists toward the wings while tournament officials conferred in alarm.
Leo ignored them.
He came down the stage steps.
Ethan followed.
“Mom?”
“I've got it.”
Leo looked past me.
“No, you don't.”
That was pure Leo.
He had been challenging my definitions since he learned enough words to do it.
Julian stared at him.
Up close, the resemblance became crueler.
Leo stared back without blinking.
“I know who you are,” he said.
Julian's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Ethan reached inside his jacket.
My stomach dropped.
“Ethan.”
He avoided my eyes.
That confirmed guilt before the object even appeared.
He unfolded an old photograph.
My wedding photograph.
Not the framed copy from storage, which I had thrown away years ago, but the small print my mother had kept in a family album.
I had discovered it missing three weeks earlier.
“Where did you get that?”
“Grandma's.”
“We'll discuss theft later.”
“I borrowed it.”
“Without permission.”
“This seems like a bad time for vocabulary.”
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Julian took the photograph with both hands.
There we were at twenty-six, standing outside a courthouse in Virginia because we had been too broke for the wedding his parents expected.
I was laughing at something outside the frame.
Julian was looking at me.
For years, I had hated that photograph because he looked so convincingly in love.
Now he stared at his younger face as though it belonged to a dead man.
“Elena,” he said quietly.
“What have you told them?”
“Enough.”
His eyes lifted.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we know you left before we were born,” Leo said.
Julian looked at him.
“We?”
“Twins usually come in plural.”
“Ethan,” I murmured.
“What?”
“Not helping.”
He slipped his hands into his pockets.
Julian swallowed.
“You're thirteen?”
Leo's expression hardened.
“You can do math.”
Victoria made a strangled sound behind him.
Julian turned toward me.
“You were pregnant with twins?”
The accusation in his voice was so familiar that for one ugly second I was thirty years old again, standing barefoot in our apartment while he packed shirts into a suitcase and told me I had made everything harder than it needed to be.
I felt that old impulse to defend myself.
Then it passed.
“You left when I was nine weeks pregnant.”
“You said a baby.”
“At nine weeks, that's what the first scan showed.”
“You never told me there were two.”
“I found out after you left.”
“You could have called.”
“I did.”
His face changed.
Victoria looked at him.
I continued before he could rewrite the past in public.
“I called three times after the ultrasound.”
Julian shook his head.
“I never got those calls.”
“I left messages.”
“With who?”
“The number you gave my attorney.”
Victoria stopped moving.
It was slight, but I saw it.
So did Ethan.
My quieter son missed almost nothing when he chose to pay attention.
Julian turned toward his wife.
“What number?”
Victoria folded her arms.
“Don't.”
“What number, Victoria?”
“This is not the place.”
A few seconds earlier, she had apparently believed it was exactly the place.
Julian took a step toward her.
“Did Elena call?”
Preston looked at his mother.
“Mom?”
May you like
Victoria's face tightened.
I had spent thirteen years assuming Julian ignored my messages because ignoring difficult things was one of his most reliable talents.
