Chương 2
He remembered almost none of the drive.
At one red light he noticed the cream folder on the passenger seat and reached over to keep it from sliding to the floor.
That gesture stayed with him.
He protected it instinctively.
He was still angry about that when he pulled into Lorraine’s driveway.
Her front door opened before he reached it.
She stood there wearing black leggings, house slippers, and a pale sweater with one sleeve pushed higher than the other.
“You shouldn’t drive when you’re upset.”
Ethan walked past her.
“Where’s the box?”
Lorraine shut the door.
“What box?”
He turned.
She looked older than she had three days earlier.
That annoyed him too.
He did not want age to make her sympathetic. He did not want the small tremor in her fingers or the tiredness under her eyes to complicate what had happened.
“Apparently there’s a locked box with my picture in it.”
Her face changed.
Barely.
But Ethan saw it.
“You knew he found it.”
“No.”
“You knew the box existed.”
Lorraine walked toward the kitchen.
“Coffee?”
“What?”
“I made coffee.”
“Mom.”
“I’m not going to have this conversation with you standing in the foyer.”
He followed because some habits survived even the collapse of reality.
The kitchen smelled like lemon cleaner and toasted bread. A grocery list was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet from Sedona. The dishwasher hummed.
Lorraine poured coffee into a blue mug.
Her hands were steadier when she had something to do.
Ethan remained standing.
She put the mug on the counter.
“He wasn’t supposed to see that photograph.”
Ethan stared at her.
“That’s what you’re opening with?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“How about who the hell he is?”
Her eyes lifted.
“You already know.”
“No. I suspect. That is not the same thing.”
She sat down.
Ethan did not.
The kitchen clock clicked once every second. He had bought it for her two Christmases ago because she complained she could not read the old one from the breakfast table.
He suddenly wished he had never bought her anything.
“He’s Mara’s son,” Lorraine said.
“I figured that part out.”
“And yours.”
There it was.
No swell of music. No room tipping sideways.
Just his mother saying two words in the kitchen where she had packed his lunches when he was twelve.
And yours.
Ethan gripped the back of a chair.
“How do you know?”
“Because Mara told me.”
“When?”
Lorraine did not answer.
“When?”
“When she was pregnant.”
The chair legs made a harsh sound as Ethan pulled it out, though he did not sit.
“You knew before he was born.”
“Yes.”
“You knew for eight years.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
His mother’s face tightened.
“It wasn’t that simple.”
Ethan laughed once.
It was an ugly sound.
“Of course.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Turn me into some monster before you know what happened.”
“You hid my child from me.”
“I kept you out of a situation that would have destroyed you at the time.”
Ethan’s fingers went still on the chair.
There were sentences that carried their own old rooms inside them.
At the time.
He was thirty-one then.
Thirty-one and sleeping four hours a night. Thirty-one and pretending his father’s death had not rearranged him. Thirty-one and drinking more than he admitted to anyone. Thirty-one and running a failing architectural partnership with a man he no longer trusted.
But Mara had known him during the better months.
That was what made it worse.
“She tried to tell me?”
Lorraine looked at the mug.
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She called.”
“My phone?”
“She called the house first.”
“I wasn’t living here.”
“You were staying here after your father died.”
“For six weeks.”
“She called during those six weeks.”
Ethan waited.
Lorraine rubbed her thumb along the mug handle.
“You were asleep.”
“And?”
“I spoke to her.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked what she wanted.”
“She told you she was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
Lorraine’s eyes hardened, not with anger exactly, but with the defensive posture Ethan had known his entire life.
“I asked whether she was sure it was yours.”
He pushed the chair away from him.
“Jesus Christ.”
“I didn’t know her.”
“I did.”
“You knew her for three months.”
“Four.”
“Fine. Four.”
Ethan stared at the kitchen window.
A squirrel moved along the fence.
He watched it because looking at his mother felt impossible.
“What happened after that call?”
“She wanted to speak to you.”
“You didn’t let her.”
“You were barely functioning.”
“That was not your decision.”
“You think I didn’t know that?”
“You made it anyway.”
Lorraine’s voice sharpened.
“Yes. I did.”
For a moment they were simply mother and son again, fighting in a kitchen, old instincts rising ahead of thought.
Then Ethan looked at the folder in his hand.
Everything shifted back.
“Did she call again?”
Lorraine did not answer quickly enough.
“How many times?”
“A few.”
“How many?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember.”
“Maybe six. Seven.”
Ethan pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek.
“What else?”
“She sent an email.”
“To me?”
“Yes.”
“You deleted it.”
Lorraine looked away.
He felt the blood leave his face.
“You deleted it.”
“I was checking your messages because you weren’t answering clients, Ethan. You had asked me to help.”
“Not with that.”
“No.”
“Did you block her?”
A longer pause.
“Yes.”
He sat down then because his legs had finally made the decision for him.
Lorraine took a breath.
“I believed she would try another way if she truly needed to reach you.”
Ethan looked at her.
“That might be the cruelest thing you’ve said so far.”
“I was scared.”
“So was she.”
“I was watching my son fall apart.”
“And she was pregnant with him.”
Lorraine flinched at the pronoun.
Him.
Not a situation.
Not a problem.
Noah.
May you like
Ethan took the folder from under his arm and placed it on the table between them.
His mother did not touch it.
