Chương 6
“And did she?”
“Once.”
My stomach turned.
“When?”
“March.”
“In March.”
“Yes.”
“Which day?”
He looked confused.
“What?”
“Which day did a woman I didn’t know pick up the child I’ve been helping raise?”
“Rachel.”
“Which day?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“I do.”
The memory arrived before I wanted it.
A Wednesday.
Rain all afternoon.
The office had been short-staffed because one receptionist had strep.
Graham texted me around four saying his meeting ran late but Millie was handled.
I had offered to leave early.
He told me not to worry.
That evening Millie came home wearing a yellow raincoat I had never seen.
She said Daddy’s friend had an extra one.
I had assumed Beth.
I had never even asked.
“The yellow raincoat.”
Graham stared at me.
“You remember.”
“Of course I remember.”
I laughed softly.
“I washed it.”
He looked down.
“I know.”
“Nora’s?”
“Yes.”
“Is it still at our house?”
“Yes.”
The idea of that coat hanging beside mine in the hall closet made my skin crawl.
Not because Nora had done something monstrous.
Because her presence had already entered my home in small ordinary ways while I remained deliberately ignorant.
“How many things in our house came from her?”
“Rachel, it’s not like that.”
“What is it like?”
“She gave Millie a few things.”
“What things?”
“A book.”
“What book?”
“The one about the fox.”
I knew exactly which one.
Millie had slept with it under her pillow for almost two weeks.
“What else?”
“A puzzle.”
I closed my eyes.
The one with the planets.
Graham had told me he found it at a bookstore.
“What else?”
“Some art supplies.”
“The metallic markers?”
He nodded.
I opened my eyes.
“You lied about every object.”
“I didn’t think—”
“No.”
I raised a hand.
“Do not say you didn’t think.”
He stopped.
Beth moved to the bench and sat.
For the first time, she looked as tired as I felt.
“I told him this would happen.”
Graham laughed bitterly.
“You also told me not to tell Rachel before the wedding because it would blow everything up.”
Beth’s head snapped toward him.
“I told you not to tell her the week her father was in the hospital.”
My anger shifted toward her.
“You knew that long?”
She looked ashamed.
“Not all of it.”
“How much?”
“I knew about Nora in January.”
“January.”
“Yes.”
I tried to place January in my life.
My father’s chest pain.
The emergency room.
Snow along the highway during the three-hour drive home.
Graham making coffee at two in the morning while I waited for the cardiologist to call.
Beth bringing soup.
Both of them had known something I did not.
I hated the sudden suspicion attaching itself to every kindness.
“Did everyone know?”
“No.”
Beth shook her head quickly.
“Absolutely not.”
“Claire’s parents?”
Graham and Beth exchanged a glance.
I saw it.
My voice went flat.
“They know.”
“Lillian knows Nora is back,” Graham said.
“Since when?”
“February.”
“And her husband?”
“Yes.”
I thought of Claire’s parents inside the ballroom.
Lillian had cried during my vows.
Had she been crying because she was happy for me, or because she knew another version of this family was already taking shape behind my back?
“How did they react?”
“Badly.”
“That’s why they nearly stopped coming to the wedding,” Beth said.
I looked at her.
“They told me it was because of the travel.”
Beth gave a miserable little nod.
“George has sciatica.”
“That part is true.”
I stared at her.
She almost smiled, then seemed to realize how wrong the moment was.
“Sorry.”
The strange thing was that I nearly smiled too.
It lasted half a second and made me angrier.
Humor had no right to survive this evening.
“What did Lillian say about Nora?”
Graham’s face tightened.
“She told me I was betraying Claire.”
I frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does to her.”
“How?”
“She thinks letting Nora near Millie is disrespecting the life Claire chose.”
“The life Claire chose with you.”
“Yes.”
“And Nora thinks the opposite.”
“Yes.”
“What does Nora think?”
Graham hesitated.
“That Claire never stopped loving her.”
The courtyard seemed colder.
“And do you think that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You found emails.”
“I found complicated emails.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Claire loved Nora and regretted hurting her.”
He looked at me.
“It also means she loved me.”
“Stop defending your marriage to a woman who has been dead for six years.”
His face hardened.
“I’m not defending it.”
“You keep saying she loved you like I accused her of fraud.”
“Because every time we talk about Nora, everyone turns my marriage into some mistake Claire made.”
“Who is everyone?”
“Nora.”
There was anger there now.
Real anger.
“Lillian.”
He looked toward Beth.
“Sometimes Beth.”
Beth stared at him.
“I have never said your marriage was a mistake.”
“You’ve implied Claire was confused.”
“She was confused.”
“She was pregnant and scared.”
“She was also contacting the woman she had planned a life with.”
“That doesn’t erase me.”
“No one said it did.”
Their argument rose with the familiarity of something repeated many times.
I watched them and suddenly understood that this secret had a history among them.
They had already had their emotional reactions.
They had already yelled, defended, reconsidered, revisited.
I was arriving months late to a conversation about my own family.
“Stop.”
They both fell silent.
I pointed toward the ballroom.
“There are seventy people in there thinking we are having the happiest night of our lives.”
Graham’s expression changed.
“Rachel.”
“I’m going back inside.”
He stood.
“What?”
“I’m not spending another hour hiding in a courtyard while everyone wonders where the bride went.”
“You don’t have to pretend.”
“I’m not pretending for you.”
I looked at Beth.
“I’m not pretending for anyone.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m making sure Millie doesn’t remember our wedding as the night every adult she loves exploded.”
Graham’s face softened.
May you like
That made me furious.
“Don’t look grateful.”
