Chương 6
“What?” I called.
“Can I have a snack?”
I almost laughed.
A tiny, ridiculous request in the middle of the worst night of my marriage.
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
I looked at Mark.
He almost smiled.
Almost.
“Fruit,” I said.
“A real snack?”
I closed my eyes.
“Fruit is a real snack.”
“It’s boring.”
“Life is full of disappointment.”
There was a pause.
Then Leo said, “Okay.”
His footsteps moved toward the stairs.
For a few seconds, the room felt almost normal.
Then I remembered.
Nothing was normal.
I went downstairs and cut strawberries for my son while Mark stayed upstairs.
That was the first time in ten years that we were in the same house but felt like strangers.
Leo sat at the kitchen island swinging his legs.
“Mommy?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you mad at Daddy?”
The knife stopped in my hand.
Children were terrifying because they noticed the things adults worked so hard to hide.
“Why do you ask that?”
“You’re cutting the strawberries too fast.”
I looked down.
He was right.
The pieces were uneven.
I slowed down.
“Sometimes grown-ups have problems.”
“Are you and Daddy going to get divorced?”
The question came out so casually.
Like he was asking whether we were buying a different cereal.
I put the knife down.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because Mia at school said her parents got divorced and her mom cried.”
My chest tightened.
“Parents can have problems and still love their kids.”
“Do you and Daddy have problems?”
I looked at my son.
At the child who had accidentally exposed the first crack in a wall I never knew existed.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
That was all.
Children accepted complicated things in ways adults often could not.
He ate his strawberries.
I watched him.
And I wondered how many times I had convinced myself that protecting him meant keeping everything peaceful.
Maybe peace built on silence was not really peace.
When I returned upstairs, Mark was standing by the window.
He turned.
“Leo okay?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
I picked up the folder.
“I want to talk to Claire.”
Mark looked surprised.
“Tonight?”
“No.”
I looked at the clock.
“Not tonight.”
The exhaustion finally reached me.
“I want to talk to her tomorrow.”
“She might not want to.”
“Then I’ll respect that.”
Mark watched me carefully.
“You believe her?”
I thought about the woman in the grocery store.
The woman wearing my necklace.
The woman who had looked confused when I accused her.
“I don’t know what I believe.”
That was the first completely honest thing I had said all night.
“But I know one thing.”
“What?”
“I’m done being the only person in this family who doesn’t know the truth.”
Mark looked down.
And for once, he did not try to defend himself.
But I knew there was one more thing I had not said.
I was not ready to forgive him.
I was not even sure forgiveness was the right word anymore.
Forgiveness made it sound like someone had made a single mistake.
Mark had made choices.
Thousands of them.
Every morning he woke up beside me and decided not to tell me.
Every night he kissed our son goodnight and carried a secret into the next day.
That was not one moment.
That was a path.
The next morning, I woke up before my alarm.
For a few seconds, I forgot.
Then I opened my eyes and saw Mark sleeping beside me.
Not touching me.
Not because he had moved away.
Because sometime during the night, I had placed a pillow between us.
I stared at the ceiling.
The strange thing about heartbreak was that it did not always feel like crying.
Sometimes it felt like noticing a small thing.
A gap between two people.
A space that had not existed yesterday.
I got out of bed quietly.
Downstairs, I started coffee.
The machine made the same noise it made every morning.
The same smell filled the kitchen.
I stood there holding my mug and wondered how many ordinary mornings had been built on information I did not have.
When Mark came downstairs, he looked exhausted.
He had barely slept.
Neither had I.
“Morning,” he said.
The word sounded careful.
Like he was approaching an injured animal.
“Morning.”
Leo ran into the kitchen wearing one sock.
“Mom, I can’t find my other one.”
I looked at him.
“You lost a sock?”
“Yes.”
“Again?”
“It’s not my fault.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Whose fault is it?”
He thought about it seriously.
“The sock’s.”
A small laugh escaped before I could stop it.
Mark smiled.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
That was the cruel thing.
I could still laugh with him.
I could still recognize him.
Love did not disappear just because trust broke.
Sometimes that made the breaking worse.
After Leo left for school with his backpack half open and his jacket forgotten on the chair, I stood in the kitchen with Mark.
“We need to talk to Claire,” I said.
He nodded.
“I contacted her this morning.”
I looked at him.
“You did?”
“She texted me.”
My body went still.
“What did she say?”
He picked up his phone.
“She asked if you knew.”
I frowned.
“Knew what?”
Mark looked at the screen.
“That she was my sister.”
I felt a strange sadness.
Not anger.
Sadness.
Because Claire had been carrying her own version of this confusion.
“She knew about me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She saw our family photos when she came here.”
“When she was in our bedroom?”
Mark looked down.
“Yes.”
I hated the way that answer still bothered me.
Even knowing the truth.
Even understanding that Claire had not come there for the reason I first believed.
She had still crossed a line.
She had still entered a private part of my life.
“What else did she say?”
Mark hesitated.
“She apologized.”
“For what?”
“For taking the necklace.”
I looked at him.
“She admitted it?”
“Yes.”
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“Why?”
“She said she thought it belonged to her.”
