Chương 4
Then he picked up the folder.
At the doorway, he stopped.
"Ethan doesn't know."
I stared at him.
"What?"
"About Rebecca."
"Does Sophie?"
His silence changed shape.
I felt cold again.
"Mark."
"She figured some of it out."
"Because Rebecca told her?"
"No."
"Because you did?"
"No."
He rubbed his jaw.
"She saw messages on my phone."
My daughter's pale face in the church hallway came back to me.
The sleeves pulled over her hands.
The careful question about whether I was moving.
She had been carrying more than she told me.
"How long has she known?"
"A few weeks."
"And you told her not to tell me."
"I told her it was adult business."
I stepped backward because for one second I genuinely thought I might slap him.
He saw it.
Neither of us moved.
Then a floorboard creaked above us.
We both looked toward the stairs.
Sophie stood halfway down.
Her face was wet.
"I didn't want you to hate me," she said.
I crossed the kitchen before Mark could speak.
She came down the remaining steps so fast she nearly missed one.
I caught her against me.
Her whole body shook once.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into my shoulder.
I held her tighter.
"You have nothing to be sorry for."
Mark stood several feet away with the blue folder under his arm.
"Dad said telling you would ruin Christmas."
Sophie pulled back and wiped her nose with her sleeve.
"And then Rebecca said you were leaving, and I thought maybe you already knew, but you didn't, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do."
Mark put the folder down.
"Soph."
She flinched at his voice.
He stopped moving.
That tiny recoil changed his face more than anything I had said.
He looked suddenly older.
Not weaker.
Just stripped of whatever story he had been telling himself about protecting the children.
Sophie gripped my sweater.
"Are you leaving?"
I looked at Mark.
He looked back.
For once, neither of us answered for the other.
"No," I said.
"Not tonight."
Sophie nodded as if tonight were the only piece of the future she could manage.
At that moment, it was the only piece I could manage too.
Mark left twenty minutes later with an overnight bag, the blue folder, and the expression of a man who had somehow expected to be comforted while dismantling his own life.
I did not ask where he was going.
Sophie sat at the kitchen table wrapped in one of my old college sweatshirts, staring at a mug of hot chocolate she had not touched.
Ethan came downstairs while Mark was carrying the bag through the hallway.
He stopped on the last step.
"What's going on?"
Mark looked at me.
I hated him for that look.
It was the look of someone asking me to help manage the consequences of his choices.
"Your dad is staying somewhere else tonight," I said.
Ethan frowned.
"Why?"
Mark set the bag down.
"Your mom and I are having some problems."
Sophie made a small sound in her throat.
Ethan looked at her.
Then at me.
Then back at Mark.
"What kind of problems?"
"Adult problems," Mark said.
I watched Ethan's face close.
He was seventeen, old enough to recognize evasion and young enough to resent it.
"That phrase is doing a lot of work around here lately."
Mark flinched.
Apparently Sophie was not the only one who had heard it.
"Ethan, this isn't the time."
"Then when is?"
"Tomorrow."
"You always say tomorrow."
Mark picked up the bag again.
Ethan stepped away from the stairs.
"No, don't."
Mark stopped.
"What?"
"I said don't call me like nothing happened."
The room went silent.
I almost interrupted.
Then I stopped myself.
For years, I had filled silences for everyone in this family.
Mark rubbed his jaw.
"Okay."
He left.
The front door clicked shut.
Ethan stood there for another few seconds.
Then he turned to Sophie.
"You knew."
She started crying again.
His anger disappeared so quickly it startled me.
"Hey."
He crossed the room and sat beside her.
"I didn't mean it like that."
She wiped her face with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
"I wasn't supposed to say anything."
"About what?"
I sat across from them.
There was no version of this conversation that protected them from pain.
There were only versions that gave them truth in different doses.
"Your father has been seeing Rebecca."
Ethan's face went blank.
"Seeing her how?"
Sophie stared at the table.
He understood.
"Oh."
I expected him to swear.
Instead he laughed once.
It was not amusement.
It sounded frighteningly like me.
"Of course."
I looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing."
"Ethan."
He stood.
"It means I'm going upstairs."
"Sit down."
"I'm not twelve."
"No, you're seventeen, which is still not old enough to have to figure this out alone."
His eyes flashed.
"You didn't figure it out."
The sentence hit exactly where he intended.
Sophie whispered his name.
Ethan closed his eyes.
"Sorry."
I could have pretended it did not hurt.
I was too tired.
"That was mean."
"I know."
He sat again.
"I knew something was weird."
"With Rebecca?"
"With Dad."
He picked at a crack in the table finish.
"He started asking me weird questions about next year."
"What questions?"
"Like whether I'd rather stay here if you guys ever moved."
My stomach tightened.
"When?"
"Maybe October."
Sophie looked up.
"He asked me that too."
I turned to her.
"What did you say?"
"That I didn't want to move."
Of course she had.
Mark had collected answers from our children before I even knew a question existed.
Ethan leaned back.
"He also asked if I thought you'd like a condo."
I stared at him.
"A condo."
"Yeah."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"Did he mention Rebecca?"
"No."
He paused.
"Not then."
The word caught me.
"When did he?"
Ethan's mouth tightened.
"He didn't exactly."
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"Then what happened?"
He looked toward Sophie as if deciding whether she should hear it.
